ADP faults FG on cyber security tax

The Action Democratic Party (ADP), has faulted the introduction of the Cyber Security Tax by the Federal Government describing it as an additional burden on Nigerians.

Mr Yabaji Sani, the ADP National Chairman said this on Wednesday in Abuja at the presentation of Certificate of Return to the party’s Ondo State governorship candidate.
Sani said that successive governments in Nigeria had imposed compulsory levies on individuals and entities, saying however that excessive taxation without consideration on the plight of the masses was injurious.

“All over the world the only form of raising funds and revenue by government is through taxation.
‘`If that is the fundamental reason which is accepted universally that government must tax citizens to earn revenue to develop, provide security and welfare for the people, perhaps the government is in order to levy people.
“But in our situation, if we look at what is happening today, this government is looking for revenue left, right and center from the wrong place, from the wrong people and at the wrong time.

“With what is happening to our naira, foreign exchange, the level of poverty, unemployment, and suffering due to removal of fuel subsidy, unification of exchange rate, increase in electricity tariff and now the cyber security crime levy.
“It is insensitive to put pressure on the masses when the government knows that the loss of revenue of the country is through the oil and gas sector and not through the Central Bank of Nigeria,’’ he said.
He urged the government to capitalise on the oil and gas sector and other sectors of the economy where resources were being looted and unaccounted for to raise revenue for developmental projects.
‘’These sectors have the capacity to fund the government without mounting pressure on the masses,’’ he said.
Sani also urged the government to put in place policies that would rather protect the masses without necessarily taxing them beyond the reasonable limit.
He said that the cyber security taxation was ill timed and should be reconsidered for the benefits of the citizens, adding also that Nigerians should begin to question the government’s usage of taxes.
Speaking, Mr Ayodeji Akinnodi, the ADP Ondo governorship candidate promised to ensure free healthcare services and free education in the state, if given the mandate in the Sept.21 poll.
He urged the people to vote for him, so he could turn things around in the state.(NAN)

By Diana Omueza/Deborah Michael