From Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja
The Federal Government has been commended by the Nigeria Agricultural Stakeholders Forum for the ban and enforcement of collection of revenues along federal highways.
The forum made this remark recently when the Chairman, Alhaji Mohammed Tahif, addressed the media and specially commended Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, for writing the 36 state governors and security agencies on the enforcement of the ban on collection of levies/taxes on agricultural produce and agro-allied products on the highway.
The letter dated February 14, 2017, with reference SPD/719/T, stated: “ I wish to inform you that inspite of the joint stakeholders’ consultative meetings and the unanimous resolution on the abolition of the collection of levies/taxes on agricultural produce and agro-allied products on our highways, we have been inundated with complaints and petitions against non-adherence to or implementation of same, unprovoked and unwarranted attacks by states’ agro produce sales/haulage tax agents.”
Ogbeh said the continued collection of these taxes through mounting of roadblocks on the highways results not only in multiple taxation, but also in unbearable increase in the prices of agricultural produce thereby unleashing pain and hardship on the people of the nation.
According to him, to effectively remedy the situation, the National Economic Council (NEC) and the National Council on Agriculture (NCA) have unanimously agreed that the roadblocks be dismantled while the various states and LGA revenue agents in this respect be disbanded.
He ordered that the collection of these fees, levies and / or taxes be abolished out rightly, while the continued collection of these revenues is illegal; and the activities of the collectors on the highways are criminal in nature and liable to prosecution.