Former Commissioner for Finance in Ogun State and Founder/President International Centre for Tax Research and Development, Mrs Morenike Babington-Ashaye, has counselled the Federal Government against implementing the newly increased 10 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT), cautioning that implementing it would create more economic problems for Nigerians.
This was just as she equally charged the Federal Government to stop borrowing to fund development in the country, saying that the government should rather develop natural resources in Nigeria for the advancement of the people.
Babington-Ashaye said this on Thursday in Lagos at the unveiling of her book titled “Natural World Restoration,” a compilation of what she said God revealed to her about the development of the world and the plan and His plan to restore the natural world order between 2024 and 2030.
The former commissioner, while suggesting that the book should be read along with the 10 commandments God gave to the world, noted that any move to increase the VAT from 7.5 to 10 per cent would be seen to mean that the Federal Government was not sensitive to the plight of Nigerians.
According to Babington-Ashaye, the 7.5 VAT increment is still creating problems, not to mention increasing it to 10 per cent, pointing out that not all products that the government needs to tax should be classified as being taxed and those not to be taxed, even as she demanded that the government abolish import duties if the government wanted to encourage manufacturers in the country.
Speaking further, Babington-Ashaye, who is also the chairman of Accounting Education Research Services (ACCERS), said Nigeria does not have a perfect tax system, noting that the one handed over to the country by the colonialists was not reformed.
The Tax Specialist, while noting that Nigeria gets a lot of proposals from the United Kingdom on taxation without knowing how to domesticate it, argued that the nation’s tax system should not be tailored after the Western world style, just as she noted that taxes should not be seen as an avenue for the government to only rake money but also to be used as a form of relief for the people.
“We need to determine what is good for us; the Western World has social benefits we don’t have,” she said.
On the need for the government to stop borrowing to fund development in the country, Babington-Ashaye said the Federal Government should develop within and stop mortgaging the country’s natural resources for loans.
According to her, God has specifically allocated 50 per cent of earnings from natural resources to all households to be shared equally every month, saying that this was meant to give economic empowerment to the people.
“Every nation and continent must develop itself to advance its people. Nations must develop within their means. No nation can mortgage its natural resources for loans as God has specifically allocated 50 per cent of earnings from natural resources to all households to be shared equally every month. This is to give economic empowerment to the people.
“No nation can assert control over another because of its economic interest in that nation. God wants nations to invest in their nations and come together to develop their continents, but not at the expense of other nations and continents.
“Our economy should be in the hands of the citizens. The lack of capital has trapped citizens from fully participating effectively. We should operate a two-level public administration—the community and national government.
“Investing in human resources is to tap into talents God planted in people, which He said is more than the value of treasures under the ground, in the air, and in the sea. So the issue of students’ loans needs to be revisited. We should use part of the remaining 50 per cent of the revenue from natural resources for education.
“We need to request the World Bank and IMF to write off our loans because they supervise the corruption, which they claim causes economic regression. The disparity in workers’ remuneration between politicians and other citizens is alarming and very unfair since we are all working for the development of our nation.
“No one has the right to waste taxpayers’ money, so the government must be mindful that public expenditure must be determined by the needs of the people and not what those elected want. We must be able to discern between climate change and God’s wrath. What is claimed as climate change presently may be God’s punishment,” she argued.
Speaking on the importance of her book, the former commissioner said it was an inspiration from God and a warning to people in the world to mend their ways because the end of the world was fast approaching.
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