By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Senior Staff of Statutory Corporation and government-owned companies have rejected the plans by the Federal Government to transfer stamp duty collections to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
The workers in a protest on Thursday, barricaded the entrance to the Ministry of Finance in Abuja to press home their demands.
The protest led by Comrade Ayo Olurunfemi temporarily made movements in and out of the finance ministry impossible for the minister of finance budget and national planning, Mrs zainab Ahmed, minister of state, budget and national planning, prince Clem Agba and their Information and Culture counterpart, Lai Mohammed from exiting the ministry shortly after the public presentation of 2020 budget details.
Addressing journalists at the entrance of the ministry, Comrade Olurunfemi accused the finance Minister of causing inter-agency rivalry and disunity.
“The action of the minister is unfortunate, unhealthy and inimical to the ideals preached by this administration and if not checked, it is capable of causing inter-agency disunity and unhealthy rivalry even now when all hands must be on deck to uplift the nation”
“We are particularly surprised that the minister is bent on taking over a mandate that was globally assigned to postal services”.
Olurunfemi vowed that the union will not allow what he described as an injustice to happen lest it will be replicated to other revenue-generating agencies too.
“From the argument of the minister, it follows that if stamp duty is a form of taxation, it’s collection should be ceded to the FIRS. Does that mean that Nigeria customs which also collect various duties will also have their functions reverted to FIRS?
“Of course if we permit the evil as perpetrated, the roles of customs service, Nigeria ports authority, standards organization of Nigeria, and all revenue collecting agencies will eventually be ceded to FIRS under the highly powerful minister of finance”.
According to him, a migration from the production of adhesive stamps to electronic payment production cannot mean a change of mandate.
He said the agency has projected a N500billion revenue collection for the government in 2020, “while the federal government has projected stamp duty collection of N400billion”
We in the agency have estimated a N500billion revenue collection and by virtue of who collects more, we should be allowed to collect and get our 5percent cost of collection.
“No agency has the capacity nipost has such as facilities across the country, even to rural areas, to improve government’s financial literacy policy”.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed who later walked to the gate to address the protesters, urged them to document their grievances and present to her for further engagements.
She said her primary responsibility is to ensure that more revenue is collected on behalf of the federal government.
It will be recalled that part of the finance bill has ceded stamp duty collection revenue to the federal inland revenue services, a position the workers are contending.
