PIND: Multiple Taxation Affecting Small Businesses in Niger Delta

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

A non-governmental organisation, the Foundation for Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND) yesterday noted that illegal levies and multiple taxation were affecting small businesses in the Niger Delta region.

Advocacy Manager, PIND, Mr Chuks Ofulue, who stated this while speaking with journalists in Port Harcourt, noted that that there should be a limit to tax collection, stressing that it has negative implications.

While highlighting the place of taxation in economic development, he noted that excess of it could scare investors who may think they are over-taxed by government at all levels on the same item.

Ofulue said: “We advocate against illegal levy and advocate for the limitation of multiple taxation. Looking at such taxation, generally it is government responsibility to impose taxes. Taxes are legal, there is nothing wrong with that.

“We try to say to government, if you impose multiplicity of taxes, that is, imposing the same taxes that federal government has imposed, the state is imposing and the local government is imposing. The same tax imposed by the federal, state and local governments, will drive away businesses.

“If businesses are driven away, your intention of generating revenue for the state will be lost, the businesses will put off business or they will go underground and you won’t see them to tax.”

He added: “What we are advocating is to ensure that those kind of things don’t happen anymore so that people will be peaceful and they will earn money and better their livelihood”.

He disclosed that PIND had been in partnership with other stakeholders, including the civil society and some government departments to ensure a better environment for residents and indigenes of the region.

Also speaking during the parley, David Udofia, who is in charge of the organisation’s Peacebuilding Programme, explained that PIND had contributed extensively to the existing peace in the region.

Udofia said the organisation had been in the Niger Delta for over 13 years and is present in all the nine states of the region. He added that with PIND’s intervention in various sectors, there is more peace in the Niger Delta region compared to years before now.