The Senate on Monday met with the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), to discuss the contentious issues generating controversies in the four tax reform bills before the National Assembly.
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President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had transmitted the bills to the National Assembly in October last year, and sought expeditious passage. But the bills generated alot of controversies leading to the suspension of legislative work for proper consultations.
Sequel to this, the Senate had constituted a committee headed by the Minority Leader, Senator Abba Moro (PDP, Benue South) to meet with the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) to address the grey areas associated with the bills.
Briefing newsmen after their meeting which lasted two hours in Abuja on Monday, Senator Moro said they were going to have a second meeting with the AGF to finalise discussions.
Moro said, “We just had a meeting and interface with the officials of government; the Attorney General of the Federation, the Chairman of RMAFC, FIRS Chairman, in the process of evaluating the contending tendencies regarding the tax bills.
“We have agreed amongst ourselves that we must synthesise the whole process to ensure that at the end of the day we give to Nigerians what Nigerians want and that is a law that serves the purpose of all Nigerians.
“So that is where we are now and hopefully, by the time we meet again, we will finalise and we will have some better story to tell you.”
While Senator Moro said another meeting would be held to finalise the issues, the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr Zacch Adedeji, was contradictory regarding a second meeting.
He first said there would be no second meeting, but in the course of the interview with newsmen, he said there would be further engagements with the lawmakers.
Zacch Adedeji said, “All those things you call grey areas were discussed. So the judgement is not to be made, it’s just for us to continue the engagement, the consultation which based on our observation, has been positive. We are in the right direction and everything is going as planned.”
In another breath, Adedeji said, “There won’t be any other further meeting because all issues were identified, all the issues were clarified and then resolutions were made.”
The FIRS Chairman also said based on “positive dispositions” shown by members of the committee to the bills, the National Assembly would soon pass them for third reading.
Recall that the Senate had passed for second reading the tax reform bills on November 28, 2024.
Adedeji said, “To the best of my knowledge, everybody there agreed that Nigeria needs the laws as proposed. So what has happened today is that you see the framework of the law, you see the Attorney-General, you see the lawmakers and all of us the operators and everything went well.”
Recall that Chairman of Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Taiwo Oyedele and Chairman of Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Dr Mohammed Bello Shehu, were part of the meeting.
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