TO GET INTERNATIONAL PASSPORTS, NIGERIANS TO SHOW EVIDENCE OF TAX PAYMENT

The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, on Monday said soon, Nigerians might begin to show evidence of tax payment before obtaining their passports.

 
Tunde Fowler said this at the 136th meeting of the Joint Tax Board which had the theme: “Increased Inter-Agency Co-operation to Enhance Tax Compliance and Optimise Revenue Collection” in Abuja.

 
“We did take a position and I believe it would be implemented in the very near future that before you get any services from the immigration department: renewal of passports etc, you’d have to show that you are a tax payer.

 
“These things are normal all over the world, In an effort to serve Nigerians and Nigeria better.
“People believe that payment of tax is a burden and I’ll repeat that you only pay tax on income and profits.

 
“So if you reside in Nigeria and you are benefiting from being a Nigerian resident, it is only fair that you contribute to the system that makes you enjoy that standard of living.”
He said the FIRS set a target to increase the individual taxpayer data base by 10 million by December 31.

 
“I’m glad with our co-operation; we’ve been able to attain 30 per cent of that. We’ve been able to get three million individual taxpayers across the nation.
“I’d like to congratulate Kano State for leading the pack by increasing the database by 944,000 followed by Lagos with 306,000 then Kaduna and Plateau,’’ he said.

 
The Corps Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi, lamented that the FRSC was being owed N700 million for number plates production.

 
He also decried the high rate of fake documentation at ports, saying “if we can strengthen inter-agency collaboration, we’ll get more results now that the focus is on IGR.” 

 
The Chairman of the Abia State Board of Internal Revenue, Udochukwu Ogbonna, urged the revenue generating agencies to co-operate digitally to ensure success and curb corruption.

 
Also, the Chairman of the Edo State Internal Revenue Service, Oseni Elamah, said “the FIRS should have a digital one-stop-shop accessible to all partners’’.

 
Some revenue generating agencies on Monday met in Abuja to curtail loss, stop corruption and increase proceeds to government coffers in 2017.

 
The event brought together all states internal revenue service chairmen and the bosses of the Nigeria Customs Service, and the Nigeria Immigration Service.
Source:Premium Times

Naira loses 85% of value in two years – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria says the naira has lost about 85 per cent of its value in the last two years and there is a need for risks managers in banks to be on top of their job because of the risks facing the banking sector.

The Director, Banking and Payment System, CBN, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, said this in a presentation at a round-table discussion organised by the Risk Managers Association of Nigeria in Lagos on Friday.

She said the Nigerian economy, including the banking sector, was facing various kinds of risks occasioned by the challenges of high inflation, naira depreciation, oil price crash and decline in manufacturing output.

As a result, the CBN director urged risk managers to rise to the task of maintaining robust risk management practice in the banking sector.

Martins said, “There is a need to avoid the situation the world experienced during the global financial crisis through the use of regulations and standards. During the global financial crisis, risk managers got significant amount of the blame.

“The nation’s Gross Domestic Product has contracted by 2.2 per cent, inflation has gone up to above 18 per cent, the currency has depreciated by about 85 per cent in the past two years, and manufacturing has contracted by three per cent.”

Martins, who is also a member of the Board of Trustees of RIMAN, added, “The oil that we produce, apart from the price, has fallen by about 70 per cent. The volume has also contracted a great deal and banks are exposed to manufacturing, oil and gas, and to the government.

“The government’s revenue has declined. Non-performing loans have increased. We do have a very cocktail of risks in our hands. What is the future of risk management? It is more and more regulation and standards.”
Source:Punch

CBN slashes dollar supply to BDCs by 46%

The Naira has come under fresh pressure in the parallel market having depreciated to N473 per dollar following the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to slash dollar sales to Bureaux De Change (BDCs) by 46 per cent. Financial Vanguard investigations revealed that last week, the CBN sold $8,000 to each BDC through Travelex Nigeria Limited.

This represents 46 per cent decline when compared to $15,000 usually sold per week to each BDC.naira-dollar Confirming this development to Financial Vanguard, Chief Executive Officer of H.J Trust BDC, Mr. Harrison Owoh said the reduction came as a surprise to the market.

He said this was contrary to the general expectation that the dollar sale will be increased to $20,000 per BDC. “That is why the currency is under pressure with the rate going up.”

Why CBN reduced dollar sales

Also confirming the development to Financial Vanguard, Chairman, South West Zone, Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Mr. Taiwo Ebenezer said that the reduction in dollar sales was done to accommodate BDCs in other zones of the country.

He said: “The dollar sales have been limited to BDCs in Lagos and Abuja, but ABCON recommended to CBN to find a way to accommodate BDCs in other zones. 

That is what the CBN has done though the reduction in supply in Lagos and Abuja has prompted the exchange rate to go up.” He added that the CBN will definitely consider the impact on the rates and take a decision on whether to keep it at $8,000 per BDC across board or increase the quantity sold per BDC.

DSS intensifies raids

Financial Vanguard investigations also revealed that the operatives of the Department of State Securities (DSS) have intensified raids on illegal currency traffickers in Lagos and Abuja, thus driving the parallel market further underground.

Speaking to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, a top BDC operator told Financial Vanguard: “They now come regularly to locations where these people usually operator from. About five of them (DSS operatives) recently visited this area but they didn’t come into the offices of licensed BDCs.

They are targeting the unlicensed and illegal operators. But everybody is careful now. You only deal with people you know except where they have their documentation. The only problem is that it is difficult to get the exchange rate that reflects the true position of the market.

People quote different rates depending on the person they are dealing with and the source of the dollar. That is how we now operate”. Financial Vanguard investigation reveals that due to the intensity of the DSS raids, some licensed BDCs have issued letters warning their staff against any form of interaction with street currency hawkers or involvement in such transactions.

“We don’t deal in parallel market transaction; we don’t even know what the parallel market rate is. We have issued letter to our staff against such transactions, that it is against company policy to be involved with or even discuss parallel market transactions”, a top official of an Abuja based BDC told Vanguard.

CBN justifies raids

Recently, the CBN Governor justified the DSS raids on illegal currency traffickers saying the nation’s foreign exchange laws forbids street trading of foreign currency. Addressing the press at the end of the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), Emefiele said that the DSS had the right to enforce the law and make sure that currency hawkers were forced out of the “illegal trade.”

The Governor, who said it was demeaning for traders to hawk currency on the streets, urged the traders to legalise their business by applying for Bureau De Change (BDC) license. 

In the communiqué issued at the end of its meeting the MPC called on security agencies to sustain the raids, saying: “The MPC believes that the security agencies should sustain their checks on the activities of illegal foreign exchange operators in order to bring sanity to that segment of the market.

 “The Committee reiterated that the extant foreign exchange regulation outlaws the trafficking of currency on the streets as some unlicensed operators currently do. Thus, to evolve an appropriate Naira exchange rate that stabilises the foreign exchange market, BDC operators must strictly observe the terms and conditions of their licence.”
Source:Vanguard

Toll gates of controversy

NOT long ago, the Senate overwhelmingly supported the reintroduction of toll gates on the country’s federal roads, describing it as the solution to the dilapidated road networks. It also agreed that the reintroduction would assist in revenue-generation drive of government and provide some sort of safety for road users.

The Senate’s resolution followed a motion sponsored by Suleiman Nazif (APC/Bauchi North). After deliberations, the upper chamber mandated its Committee on Works to liaise with Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and other relevant stakeholders to develop policy and technology to facilitate the construction, maintenance and tolling of major roads in the country.

Months earlier during a press briefing, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, gave hint to the plan and described it as “eminent commonsense.” He said that it would not be too much if the government asked every road user to pay a little to augment government funding for road maintenance.

According to him, “maintenance would be our watchword. We are setting up a robust maintenance regime to keep our highways in good shape. This shows that tolling is necessary to support government funding.”

The minister stated further that. We will use technology; so if you don’t pay cash, you will pay by token or ticket and the money is accountable and it will go to the right place. We will manage that fund properly and we will hold those who we put there to account.”

Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had scrapped the toll gates during his administration, accusing them of having outlived their usefulness. Back then, he said that N63 million, which the toll gates generated daily, was nothing to write home about, apart from the fact that the gates constituted inconvenience to motorists and encouraged corruption.

The former president, however, assured that proceeds from the petroleum tax of N1.50k per litre would be used to improve federal roads in the country. Despite the assurance, little or nothing was known about how the tax was utilised to improve Nigerian roads.

During the last administration, part of the proceeds from Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Program (SURE – P) was channelled towards funding federal road projects. It came under special intervention scheme and specific roads were targeted to be rehabilitated using the fund. Even at that, most of the federal roads remained in their horrible condition. Those not captured under the SURE – P intervention programme are, today, a shadow of themselves and real death traps.

The Manager, Ifesinachi Transport Company Ltd, Utako, Abuja, Mr Theophilus Abugu, told Sunday Tribune that the planned reintroduction of tolling is another attempt by the Federal Government to extort from the poor masses. He noted that even though the toll managers would collect from the drivers, commercial transport owners would add the cost into the passengers’ fare.

Abugu envisages a situation where traffic gridlocks would be the order of the day on the nation’s highways where those toll plazas are reintroduced. He said there was no doubt that the current and administration is fighting corruption and if capable hands were engaged, the revenue generated could support the efforts to maintain the roads, but he insisted that the money would still coming from poor Nigerians.

“In my view, toll gates will cause serious hold-ups, especially during seasons and put a lot of Nigerians in pains while travelling. Going by what the roads are now, a small pothole, causes hold-up that will delay vehicles for up to 30 minutes and not talk of when there is obstruction-collecting money and issuing receipts along the road.

“We have been maintaining the roads without toll gates, so the issue of how the money generated is going to be managed is dependent on the people who are going to be there.

The current administration is fighting corruption and as such, if capable hands are there, the money could be put into judicious use. The issue is that the money is still coming from the masses that are crying of hard economic situation now and the hold-up should not be pushed aside,” he stated.

The Public Relations Officer of Peace Mass Transit Company Ltd, Abuja, Mr Jude Ngwu, said he was not against the proposed reintroduction of toll gates provided the funds are used to fix roads across the country.
Ngwu, said reintroducing tolling would be asking motorists to pay double taxation. According to him, when Obasanjo removed the toll gates, he had built it into fuel price.
He said: “We pay toll fees whenever we buy fuel because since then, but we have not had any substantial evidence showing that the money removed from fuel, to eventually return back to toll gates.
“On the second part, reintroduction of tolling is not the problem but the problem of financial management. How will the proceeds be managed. If these proceeds are directly used to repair our roads, I don’t think anybody will have any reason to resist its reintroduction.
“Inasmuch as we may not be happy that they are introducing, we can pay double if they can keep the roads in good condition,” he said.

Similar, views were expressed by other Nigerians. Boniface Thomas, a Civil Servant, told Sunday Tribune that reintroduction of tolling was capable of generating employment for the youth in the country, but how the monies generated from toll gates are used would be the major concern.

Omeiza Ajayi, who spoke with said the country does not need tolling of its highways now. He warned that the same way government made nonsense of SURE-P is the same way it will bastardise the tolling of highways. According to him, the way to get out of the present economic recession is not to increase different forms of taxes or levies, but to introduce a stimulus package to cushion the effect of the recession.

“Tolling is a good policy, but not in Nigeria.
“Tolling is a way of financing road infrastructure usually through a Public-Private Sector-Partnership (PPP) arrangement. Elsewhere, roads are tolled, but the roads are always in good shape. “Nigeria cannot toll roads that are in bad shape. If any road must be tolled, then such road must have all the necessary facilities that modern roads where roads are tolled.

“We must remember that former President Olusegun Obasanjo removed the toll-gates because he said they had become gates of corruption. According to him, while the N65 million made daily from the gates could not be accounted for, roads leading to the toll gates were often associated with gory potholes.

“So, how were they making N65 million daily, yet even roads that were less than a kilometre away from the gates were in a bad shape? he querried.
Felix Khanoba, cautioned that reintroducing toll gates should not be a priority of the government at the moment.

He argued that government should first ensure that all major roads in the country that now look more like death-traps be put in good shape.
“Subjecting people to road tolls will not only increase the hardship of the masses, but will further erode the thin confidence in government as the provider of public good,” he said.

“Besides, the payment of road tolls in the past didn’t yield the desired result of good roads and that may likely repeat itself.

“Government should soft-pedal on the issue and explore other possible ways to ensure that roads are properly maintained. Money being realised from oil subsidy removal can be channelled into road maintenance through agency like FERMA,” he said.

Also speaking with Sunday Tribune, Gboyega Onadiran, argued that the timing of the reintroduction is wrong as the move will place a huge burden on the masses who are already overburdened by the current recession.

He recalled that some workers and other retired staff in states are being owed salaries, pension and gratuities, while Nigerians are saddled with the burden of buying petrol at N145 per liter, as well as the increase in prices of goods and services.
“I feel that it will be wrong and unfair for the government to return the toll gates. I believe government should take the lead by fixing some of the dilapidated roads and building new ones before reintroducing the toll gates.

“I suggest that government should explore the public private partnership model to deliver efficient and durable road networks that will facilitate movement of goods and services, as well as boost the economy at little or no cost to it, rather than taxing the people more.

“Government must also ensure that it has blocked all the possible loopholes were funds could be syphon and diverted into private pockets before reintroducing the toll gates

“I urge the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, to initiate the same PPP model he used to develop Lekki-Epe Road in Lagos when he governed the state.”
Source:Tribune

Nigerians groan as prices of foodstuff skyrocket

*A bag of rice goes for N19000, beans N40,000

The current economic recession in the country occasioned by the fall in the prices of oil in the international market has dealt a devastating blow on Nigerians. Following the depreciation of the naira against the dollar among other economic challenges, Nigerian families now grapple with astronomical prices of essential commodities in the country. Everybody is complaining. Families are particularly groaning under the high price of food items which have increased by 100 per cent from last year.

According to a distraught man in Lagos, “We never had it this bad in this country. My family can no longer afford three square meals in a day. We have all along been getting food items on credit. But the foodstuff sellers are now tired of us, our neighbours and friends are also tired of us begging them for food.

Everybody is really lamenting these hard times and the high prices of food items in the country”. Staple foods such as rice, beans, cassava flakes are now slipping out of the hands of average Nigerians. Market survey conducted by Saturday Vanguard in some markets in Lagos reveal that the prices of some foodstuffs are now three times higher than what they used to be in 2015.

Although, the prices of the food items in some of the markets differ the difference is just minimal. For instance, the price of rice, beans, cassava flakes, palm oil, groundnut oil, pepper in Mile 12 market is different from the price in Mushin-Olosha, Oyingbo, Cele-Ijesha, Abule Egba, Iyana-Iba, Okomaiko among others According to a trader at Mile 12 market, “there is no fixed price for the foodstuffs, people just sell according to what they buy and that is why the prices are not the same.

Investigation revealed that presently, a 50k bag of rice, is sold at the rate of nineteen thousand naira (N19,000) while the same bag of rice was sold for eight thousand, five hundred naira last year. Also, a bag of beans is now thirty nine thousand naira (39000) but in 2015, it was sold for twenty-one thousand five hundred naira (N21500). 

It was also learnt that, a bag of cassava flakes is sold at the rate of nine thousand, five hundred naira 9,500, a basket of tomatoes cost N6500, a bag of Tatashe pepper is sold at N3500, and a bag of Rodo pepper at N4500.

Also, 25 litres of Groundnut oil sells for N14,200, while palm oil of the same litre goes for N15,000. In Mushin-Olosha and Oyingbo markets, a bag of rice is sold for N19,000 while a bag of beans goes for 40,000. In the same vein, a bag of cassava flakes goes for N10,000, 25 litres of groundnut oil is sold for N14800, while palm oil is sold for N15600.

A trader at Oyingbo market, Mrs. Sarumi, lamented that the level of patronage in the market has reduced due to the high price of foodstuff adding that, this has inflicted more hardship on them. Mrs. Fatimo Adeyemi, another trader said that majority of traders are facing financial crisis because most of them borrowed money from micro-finance banks to run their businesses but they are not getting returns on their investment because of low patronage.

Another trader at Olosha market, Mr. Henry Ugochukwu, said his business used to yield huge profits until the recession period. One of the customers at Mile 12 market, Mrs. Dorcas Timothy, argued that, the money she spends in buying foodstuffs has doubled compared to last year.

She disclosed that she used to buy a bag of rice for her family but since the price has skyrocketed, she can only buy a paint bucket of rice. A resident in Ajah area of Lagos told Saturday Vanguard that, since the recession, feeding her family members has been major challenge saying, “what is most important to the family now is how to feed before thinking of pleasure”.
Source:Vanguard

Black Market Currency Dealers Go Undergound

On the teeming streets of Lagos, the Nigerian mega-city of 15 million people, the once omnipresent money-changers are going underground.

They’ve become the latest target of authorities desperate to bolster the naira and crush a black market for foreign currency that’s boomed since the crash in oil prices strangled the inflow of dollars and battered the economy.

This month, the Central Bank of Nigeria capped prices that Bureau De Change (BDC) can charge their customers for foreign exchange, effectively pegging the black-market rate, with intelligence agents threatening to jail anyone who doesn’t comply.

The activities of the security agents is creating a parallel market within the black market, according to analysts at Lagos-based Afrinvest West Africa Limited stated.

One trader in the Lagos suburb of Surulere, who asked not to be identified as he feared arrest, told Bloomberg that he would continue using the old rate with trusted customers and refuse to sell dollars to others. Anyone he doesn’t know may be a government spy, he said.

“The black market will go further underground,” an analyst at Afrinvest, Omotola Abimbola said.
“The fact they went as low as getting security forces on the streets shows a new level of desperation.”
Nigeria’s interbank market sets the naira’s official value and is meant to serve businesses.

But the scarcity of foreign-currency has forced many to go to licensed bureaux de change and the unofficial, or black, market of informal street traders, both of which sell dollars at a higher rate.
The central bank has made several attempts to defend the naira after it plunged in late 2014 along with crude prices.

Stock and bond investors are staying away from Nigeria, pointing to the wide gap between the official exchange rate and the black-market one of about N470 to a dollar. Forward prices suggest the naira will depreciate further on the official market, with 12-month contracts trading at 441 against the greenback.

The Department of State Services recently raided bureaux de change and black-market traders and instructed them to cap their rates at N400 per dollar. As a result, people with hard currency are hoarding it rather than selling at an artificially low rate, according to Haruna Usman, a money-changer in Lagos.

“It’s a struggle even to get someone to sell us $200, whereas before they’d often sell us $1,000 or $5,000,” the kaftan-clad Usman said from the mosque compound where he trades.
“Now, they’re only exchanging when they’re desperate.”

The central bank is in no mood to back down. CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele said this week that “the security agencies should sustain their checks on the activities of illegal foreign-exchange operators in order to bring sanity to that segment of the market.”

It’s another signal to foreign investors that Nigeria’s currency policy is broken, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria is clearly not ready to embrace a truly free-floating exchange rate and arguably has further undermined the confidence in the exchange-rate regime,” analysts at the New York-based lender,Yvette Babb and Sonja Keller, said in a note to clients.
“These events are likely to deter inflows.”

Nigeria isn’t the first country to clamp down on black-market trading. Egypt also arrested street dealers while pegging its currency’s official rate, until a dollar-squeeze forced it to devalue on November 3.
Source:Thisday

2017 Famine: Libya, Algeria, Niger, Chad rush Nigerian grains

ABUJA—A member of the House of Representatives Danburan Abubakar Nuhu yesterday lamented that neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad, Libya and Algeria have invaded markets in the country buying up grains in anticipation of famine next year.

Grain Reserves Grain Reserves His lamentation was sequel to over 500 trucks loaded with grains that leave every week from the markets to the neighbouring countries. 

This is as the House of Representatives has mandated its committee on Agricultural production and services to urgently investigate the looming food scarcity, with the view to ensuring that the Ministry of Agriculture synergised efforts with relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs to develop an action plan to avert the unhealthy competition of export at the expense of local demand and a possible famine in 2017.

Nuhu, who represents Kano Municipal Federal Constituency of Kano State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was of the view that both the federal and state governments could buy the grains now at the local markets and store them in case of the impending food scarcity next year.

He said that because of the forecast that there would be famine next year, it was critical for the government to make adequate preparations to cushionits effects so that the masses will not suffer unduly.
Source:Vanguard