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| Nde Isaac Wadak, Chairman, Chartered Institute of Taxation, Jos and District Society |
COVID-19 Lockdown: Chairman, Chartered Institute of Taxation,
urges Govt to brace up on palliative measures.
By Joseph A. Adudu
March 30, 2020.
The Nigerian Government
has been advised to be more critical and creative in its thinking with the will
for hard decisions but putting the people first in this period of the COVID-19
pandemic. This was the submission of the Chairman, Jos & District of the Chartered
Institute of Taxation in Nigeria (CITN), Nde Isaac Wadak in a chat with African
Drum today. According to him, this has become imperative as it is
now obvious that nearly all nations in the world will no longer be able to
meet their revenue targets, thus making it impossible to achieved budget bench
marks with the current lock/shut down of cities.
The
Financial expert added that with the current ugly development, falling back on
Reserves and cutting down expenditures has become inevitable.
“This
is the time people would know if a nation has competent leadership or not. This
is the time to know people who seek for power to serve and not to be served.
Leadership in terms of crises requires critical and creative thinking and will
for hard decisions, putting the people first", he said.
The
former Permanent Secretary Ministry of Finance, Plateau said that already, the
Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has come up with some measures like
extension of filling dates for VAT and CIT adding that the House of
Representatives too has a bill for protecting employees from job loss,
suspension of import duties on medical equipment, medical personnel protective
mask among others, while the CBN has come up with moratorium on its
intervention with interest rate reduction from 9% to 5% and so on.
He
however noted that the National Assembly can do more by voiding the vote on
purchase of vehicles for members, void the 37 billion naira voted for the
renovation of national Assembly, void the 500 million dollars loan for digitalization
of NTA and many of such spurious allocation all geared towards fighting the
COVID-19 scourge.
Wadak, in
this submission has added his voice to many others who are critical on
Government's decision to lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 without corresponding
palliative measures. Though the critics are not against the lockdown, they are
however not impressed that no fiscal measures have been introduced as nothing
has been done for individuals and businesses. Even President Buhari's
nationwide broadcast speech yesterday has no contingency mean for the welfare
of Nigerians during the period of the lockdown considering the fact that
majority of Nigerians are in the informal sector and live from day to day.
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