Tax Reform Bills: Tinubu Lacks The Will For National Consensus Building

 By Olu Fasan

Hardly anyone will disagree that Nigeria needs a fundamental tax reform. This, after all, is a country with one of the most cumbersome tax regimes in the world, where tax laws and regulations are overlapping and burdensome, where the administration and collection of taxes, and their spending, are ridden with inefficiency and corruption, and where tax avoidance and evasion are prevalent. Nigeria’s tax system is in deep crisis.

*Tinubu

However, while crises are a trigger for fundamental reforms, making the status quo unsustainable, they are not sufficient for reform success. In a democracy, there’s a critical need for an explicit electoral mandate for reform and for a carefully crafted policy design, shaped by a broad consensus for change.

Bola Tinubu’s Ministry Of Cow And Chicken Affairs

 By Ugoji Egbujo

It’s haphazard. One moment, the Federal Government is pursuing the Orasanye reforms; the next, it’s churning out fresh ministries to serve political expediency. We took away the petrol subsidy to save the economy, only to become obsessed with distributing money and food to the public as if we can’t sit to think.

Now, we have a ministry for cow and chicken affairs. A full-blooded ministry for only livestock. Who knows why the title ‘Development’ is attached to it? Some say the entire thing is a peace offering to the Miyetti Allah and company. Others say the suspicious timing makes it a lollipop in the mouth of a group wailing against the Samoa Agreement.

Thoughts On New Minimum Wage

By Oye Eribake   

A wage is monetary compensation or remuneration paid by an employer to an employee in exchange for work done. Payment may be calculated as a fixed amount for each task completed or at an hourly or daily rate, or based on an easily measured quantity of work done. On the contrary, salary is a fixed regular payment made by an employer, often monthly, for professional or office work done as opposed to manual work.

(pix: businessday)

The term “minimum wage” implies minimum legislated remuneration of an employee whether in public or private sector. In Nigeria, we find that the organised private sector (OPS) is usually just guided by the minimum wage because their compensation packages reward employees fairly adequately and in excess of the minimum wage. On the other hand, the public and informal private sectors regard it like the doctor’s life-saving prescription i.e. not to be varied. Some would rather go below it if they know that they can get away with it. That is why many states shout on roof tops that they cannot afford Federal Government determined minimum wage. The extravagant life styles of the governors, however, belie such assertions.

Like it or not, fresh negotiations must start soon given the current harsh economic realities; a higher minimum wage is inevitable. It is only Federal Government that has the constitutional responsibility to legislate it; of course that does not mean that the state governors do not have a say. The National Economic Council will drive the process culminating in enactment of an act by the NASS.

One would like to see a situation where the economic well-being of the states is taken into adequate consideration alongside the welfare of their workers in determining the new minimum wage. We have states that are agrarian while some are commercial/metropolitan just as some are rich in mineral resources especially oil and gas. The proverbial saying that all fingers are not equal sums it up! Were the state governments to behave like the organised private sector, the South-South and Lagos states should have been rewarding their unskilled workforce more than agrarian states like Benue.