The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bauchi State has asked Governor Bala Mohammed to stop opposing President Bola Tinubu’s move to reform the tax system in Nigeria.
The opposition party in the state said that the Tax Reform Bills are a welcome development that will lead to a better Nigeria.
APC added that the bills, when passed into law, will reposition the economy of the country for better productivity and efficiency as well as guarantee a fairer distribution of resources among Nigeria’s federation states.
The party however asked the governor to account for the funds that state received either as statutory allocation, palliation, assistance or any of financial benefits during the Tinubu-led administration at the center, including N144 billion in Federation Account Allocations.
The Bauchi State publicity secretary of APC, Adamu Aliyu Jallah, at a press conference yesterday, alleged there is nothing tangible to show so far in the state.
Jallah, who was responding to governor’s comments against Tinubu’s recent Tax Reform Bills at the National Assembly, said for Nigeria to compete favourably with developing nations, it must adopt the policy of paying tax.
He said the bill will bring more development to the country, particularly in the area of revenue generation.
“I am talking about the Governor’s criticism of the Tax Reform Bill. The governor should understand that every country has its source of revenue and how it spends money in terms of expenditures, this is not something that is new.
“As long as we are concerned, tax reform is not a new thing that one will see as something strange. It is the government’s way of making adjustments in various ways in order to meet the needs of its citizens.
“What I was expecting from Governor Mohammed was for him to take his time to study the Tax Reform Bill and where he discovers that there are issues, he should approach the appropriate authorities in order for them to look into it, rather than coming out wholeheartedly to criticize the bill.”
The APC spokesman criticised the privatisation policy of the state government.
He said “The government revealed plans to privatise some companies in the state, as a party we kicked against it because we feel that those companies should be revitalised so that it generates employment for youths as well as revenue for the state, but the government saw it as if we were witch-hunting the governor as an opposition party.
“Remember that the governor told the people of the state that he was going to privatise some companies in the state for productivity and efficiency, but he didn’t tell the people that he was going to allocate the companies to himself and his associates.
“Instead of the governor looking at the area of revitalising these companies, he was just there collecting allocations to build structures that the state does not need and spending the money inappropriately.
“The governor has forgotten that in the past three years, there were salary issues in the state where some people did not collect salaries for the past 10 months, 15 months and even 3 years,” he said.