The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung has called on the National Assembly to revisit the Bill supporting tax waivers for investors in sports development.
Dalung made the call when the Nigeria Hockey Federation led by its President, Senator Abdul Ningi paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
The bill, if passed and assented to will have a tax rebate for any company that supports sports. This is expected to generate funds for sports development while waiving a percentage of taxes paid by sponsors of sports development.
“Elsewhere around the world, financial institutions pick athletes, adopts them and spend their money on the development of those athletes. We must have such traditions in Nigeria. Here, multinationals make billions in Nigeria and none of them plough back the interest or the profit of their investments into sports, yet, they put billions supporting sports in other countries. That is unacceptable and that is why I will lend my voice to call on the National Assembly to revisit that legislation which was concluded but did not receive the Presidential assent, because it is a desirable legislation for sports development. If we have that bill passed and assented to by Mr President, definitely sports development will be rapid and massive.”
The Minister also commended the federation for bringing hockey back to life and for soliciting funding of their various programs.
“Despite the challenges being faced by the federation, you have been able to make indelible landmarks as far Hockey is concerned in Nigeria and Africa. All that needs to be done is justice to other federations in Nigeria. Over the years we deliberately embarked on policies of elimination of other sports and this went down to even the elimination of institutional sports.”

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