A socio-political group, Ibom Grassroots Improvement Initiative (IGDI), has lauded the state Home of Meeting for rejecting a invoice by the Akwa Ibom Inland Income Providers (AKIRS), to switch the powers to gather key taxes together with that of native governments beneath its management.
The convener of IGDI, Comrade Felix Ukpong, praised the lawmakers for rejecting the invoice, noting the inherent anomalies in it.
Ukpong mentioned if allowed to sail by, it could undermine the fiscal transparency and erode the councils’ powers as constitutionally granted beneath the Native Authorities Autonomy Act.
In a communique on the finish of an emergency assembly on the matter, Ukpong and the secretary, Ekpono Lawrence, who signed it, famous that the undue haste and lack of public deliberation or warning on the invoice as drafted by the chairman of the State Board of Inside Income Providers, Mr Okon Okon, was a violation of the constitutionally demarcated tax system.
The invoice was titled, “State Harmonised Taxes and Levies (Permitted Record for Assortment) Invoice, 2025.”
LEADERSHIP gathered that it was designed in collaboration with different chairmen of the Boards of Inside Income Providers from different states, to foyer the Nationwide Meeting’s Constitutional Overview Committee.
Ukpong mentioned, “Their goal was to amend the structure, transferring key income gadgets and features from native authorities councils to the state governments.
“This transfer is meant to facilitate the passage of the invoice into regulation, regardless of its potential influence on the fiscal autonomy of native authorities councils,” the group famous
Meeting sources mentioned the invoice was rejected “as a result of dangerous impact it portends to the native authorities economic system.
“This harmonisation, vicious in nature, would have enabled state governments to take over profitable native authorities taxes and levies, together with tenement charges, customary rights of occupancy charges, constructing allow levy, floor hire, land use cost, neighborhood enchancment cost and infrastructure improvement levy,” he mentioned.
