The Senator representing Borno South Senatorial District in the National Assembly (NASS), Ali Ndume, has declared that the tax reform bills sent to the legislative arm of government by President Bola Tinubu are dead on arrival.
Ndume argued that the President should listen to the National Economic Council (NEC) and the Northern Governors’ Forum and immediately withdraw the bills.
“If it goes on like that, I can tell you that it will be dead on arrival. We don’t need to study the bills,” the unsparingly blunt lawmaker said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.
Ndume, one of the longest serving lawmakers in the National Assembly, said the Federal government should be looking at ways to reduce the tax burden on Nigerians and not increase it.
“The general thing is that Nigerians are not willing to talk about or pay any tax now considering the (economic) situation we are in now,” he said.
“Nigerians are willing to pay taxes but they can only pay taxes when they can afford it. Right now, people are struggling to survive. Let people live first before you start asking them for taxes,” he added.
The senator said: “It will be fair to shut the bill down; it is the fairest thing to do”, indicating that he has started campaigning against the bills among his colleagues and he is getting good support to throw out the bills.
Ndume, a stalwart of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said the Tinubu administration needs to reform itself and not increase taxes paid by Nigerians.
“What he (Tinubu) needs to do is to withdraw the bill, educate Nigerians and make us understand it. We are representing the people and the people that we are representing have already spoken.
“The governors, the traditional rulers have said that the bill is not good. So, the best thing to do is to immediately withdraw it.
“Right now, what our people are saying is that they don’t want VAT bill, they don’t even want to hear about it. That is why we are going to make it dead on arrival.”
The tax reform bills which have been sent to the National Assembly have faced scathing criticisms with the 36 state governors asking the President to withdraw the bills from the legislature.
However, the President insisted that the bills would not be withdrawn, saying that “inputs and necessary changes” can be made by the lawmakers.
