Upon the clamour from certain quarters over the Tax Reform Bills, Ali Ndume, a federal lawmaker representing Borno South Senatorial District in the National Assembly (NASS), says the tax reform bills sent to the legislative arm of government by President Bola Tinubu are dead on arrival.
The Northern senator hinted that he had already started campaigning against the bills among his colleagues, and he is getting good positive responses with regards to throwing out the bills.
Ndume admonished the President to 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 known for his unconventional stance on national issues said on Channels Television’s Politics Today program on Tuesday.
One of the National Assembly’s longest-serving lawmakers, Ndume, stated that rather than raising taxes on Nigerians, the Federal Government ought to search for ways to lower them.
“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.
He pointed out that Nigerians were willing to pay taxes, but they can only pay taxes when they can afford it, adding that current realities indicate that people are struggling to survive. “Let people live first before you start asking them for taxes,” he added.
The senator said the fair thing to do is to shut the bill down, saying that the Tinubu administration needs to reform itself and not increase taxes paid by Nigerians.
He said the government should make efforts to educate Nigerians and expand understanding, noting that as representatives of the people, we are representing the people, and the people that we are representing have already spoken.
“Right now, what our people are saying is that they don’t want a VAT bill; they don’t even want to hear about it. That is why we are going to make it dead on arrival.”
