YOUR SAY: FG wants N90 from your N1,000 airtime – will you give it?
Would you be willing to give the federal government N90 of your N1,000 airtime? An incoming tax policy may force you to!
The federal government is planning a nine percent tax on SMS, MMS, phone calls, and pay TV bills in Africa's largest telecommunications market Nigeria.
Adebayo Shittu, minister of communications, had initially said the plan would fetch as much as N20 billion for the federal government on a monthly basis, translating to N240 billion in a year.
"I have been reliably informed that the projected earnings from this effort is over N20 billion every month, which is an attraction to the government for funding our budget deficits," Shittu had said.
He however added that the "this government has a human face twined around its decisions," stating that it would consider the masses before implementing such.
Just while we were brooding over this, the Communication Service Tax (CST Bill 2015) had passed first reading at the house of representatives, and may soon scale its second hurdle into becoming a law.
Although the law has been criticised in some quarters, the government is doing all it can to get out of a recession, which may include Nigerians' N9 on every N100 recharge.
"Our appetite as a government to increase revenue makes this bill worthy of our consideration," Shittu also stated.
The minister acknowledged that Nigeria had achieved only 10 percent broadband penetration, as against the 30 percent mark set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for 2018.
"If we are to catch up with lost ground and meet up with the expectations of the global community in the area of affordable broadband service, we have to incentivise the populace by helping to aid access to low cost data service subscription," he said.
The minister said that the government would provide an enabling environment for the ICT and telecommunication sector to thrive through the enactment of relevant legislation.
Nike Akande, president of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, weighed in on the policy, saying government must balance revenue generation against friendly tax policy.
The National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) and the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) have also expressed opposition.
But N20 billion per month is a lot for the federal government at such challenging time as this. Do you stand with the government or with opponents of the policy?
Let us hear you:
IBK,Stop this trite and tired sentimentalization of the putative glories of the civil servants of bygone days as a convenient cover to justify the conscienceless economic strangulation of an already vulnerable stratum of the society. No past was ever perfect. There were as many lazy, unproductive civil servants in the past as there are today, and there are as many hardworking, transaction-oriented civil servants now as there were in the past. But that's frankly even irrelevant.You are waxing all lyrical and pontifical because a bunch of thoughtless, thieving, insensate state governors have decided to deepen the misery of poorly paid civil servants by cutting their pay and sending them to farms against their wishes. However, although you admit that state governors steal money meant for the people they govern, you prescribe no punishment for the errant governors. You don't think they should suffer any consequences for their transgressions. It is only lowly civil servants that should brace themselves "for the consequences of many years of bad governance." How convenient!You said "The reality on the ground is that the current civil service both at the centre and in the states are over bloated inefficient and a drain on resources." Well, I have news for you: it isn't the civil service that is a drain on resources; it is the political elite. As a recent Wall Street Journal report pointed out, "Seventy percent of the national treasury is spent on the salaries and benefits of government officials, who make upwards of $2 million a year" (see http://www.wsj.com/articles/buhari-is-nigerias-problem- ). Yes, 70 percent! And, yes, top governmental officials make an average of $2 million a year. That's light-years higher than what the president of the United States makes.not-its-solution-1466109183 So if you want efficiency in the system and a gain on resources (to play on your choice of words), look to ":overbloated" elected and appointed political officials, not subaltern civil servants whose take-home pay has already been rendered basically useless by the hyperinflationary conflagration that Buhari's incompetent husbandry of the economy has ignited.But I guess it's infinitely way easier to beat up on weak, helpless people who are already writhing in pain on the ground than to confront the big guys.FarooqFarooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & MediaSocial Science BuildingRoom 5092 MD 2207402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State UniversityKennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. WillOn Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk2005@gmail.com> wrote:Dear Prof. Brother and Mentor,
Thank you sir. You just reminded me of a discussion I had with Prof. Adebayo Adedeji ex Fed Minister, ex USG United Nations world acclaimed orifessir if development economist.
He told me how he started life as a DO District Officer in the 50s in Ilaro my home town. One of his first duties was to take baton wielding police men to arrest his maternal uncle from Ijebu Ode who was a cocoa dealer but was not paying taxes to government.
Later after all back taxes were paid the uncle went to his mother in Ijebu dialect, "Ye Bayo nse ni omo re Bayo ko Olopa wa la kondo mo oruwo mi!" Bayo's mum your son Bayo brought police men to hit my head with their batons.
The civil service you describe here is no more. The civil service that Pa. Simeon Adebo in 1955 built from scratch to the awesome admiration of colonial civil servants who thought it was impossible is no more.
That Western Region civil service was so successful that it was used as the model for the civil service in British East Africa - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. They came to understand and understudy it and technocrats were sent to help them with setting up theirs too.
From 15 January 1966 the ignorant soldiers have consistently eroded the civil service and have turned it into a very corrupt unmeritotious over bloated institution.
The reality on the ground is that the current civil service both at the centre and in the states are over bloated inefficient and a drain on resources. The oil boom is gone and the huge subsidy that subsidises our inefficiencies and unproductive lives is no longer available.
The reality is mass retrenchment of the bloated civil service. The first step is identifying the ghost workers and prosecuting the humans collecting the salary of the ghosts and mass retrenchment.
The Benue and Imo experiment will soon be copied by the over 20 states of Nigeria that are not viable because they can not sustain themselves without federal allocation or are too indebted to pay salaries.
The Governors of states have looted the treasuries of states brazenly especially under the PDP.
It is pay back time and we must all brace ourselves for the consequences of many years of bad governance.
Abo mi re o!
.
Cheers.IBK
--On 19 Aug 2016 14:35, "Toyin Falola" <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote: IBK:Thanks. I have received many private Email messages saying the same thing. In effect, Nigeria operates some kind of welfare system without saying so! Indeed, one of the private contacts said that in his office, eleven of them report to work daily but there is no work ever assigned to them.An unknown part of my life to many people is that I was once a civil servant, an Administrative Officer. It was such a difficult job to get. Following the British system, we did written exams. in the last year of a degree program. Those exams were graded by neutral agents. Months later, rigorous oral interviews were conducted. At the end of it, the State only hired 5 of us. The governor of the state or the permanent secretaries could not influence the process. The five were then assigned to ministries on the basis of performance. I was posted to the Civil Service Commission, headed by Mr. Faturoti, a distinguished school principal whose son, Demola, is on this list. I was trained on how to handle promotion and disciplinary matters. I became powerful! Tough work. At 5 PM, you checked all the cars that no one senior to you was still around, and you must never leave. Should the Commissioners keep working till 9 PM, I had to stay till 9.30. The work could never be completed.
….and institutional decay and collapse began to set in gradually from the 1980s. Governors became emperors. Politicians enlarged the bureaucracies as these are the places they can get jobs for their followers…
Today, the disaster you reported below….the rot of a nation begins slowly…
In textbooks on politics, one that we now have to revise in Nigeria, the civil service is the force of stability and planning. Politicians come and go, the civil servants remain the rock.
Alas! Since there is no work for them to do, as you pointed out below, they are now being asked to recede to the farms, as educated peasants! I thought all the theories of the late colonial and early years of Independence asked them to leave the farms!
I thought part of the path to the civil war was that one part of the country was accused of dominating another via the civil servants, with innocent lives eliminated in the process.
I thought over 80% of the country's annual revenues are committed to personal matters and overheads.
Question: why not allocate the budget to agriculture, and go back to the basic—develop the rural areas so that the genuine farmers are empowered, and the civil service is cut by 60%?
Drastic circumstances call for drastic measures., although I understand that cutting off a head may be too drastic a cure for a lingering headache.
A mass movement, cutting across all religions and all ethnicities, must emerge to begin planning for a mass revolution that will change cultures and values, rethink politics and democracy, etc.TF
Toyin FalolaDepartment of HistoryThe University of Texas at Austin104 Inner Campus DriveAustin, TX 78712-0220USA512 475 7224512 475 7222 (fax)
From: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com > on behalf of Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk2005@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com >
Date: Friday, August 19, 2016 at 4:01 AM
To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com >
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Can this be true?
Dear Prof.,
The civil servants do nothing. They will be more productive on their farms.
The alternative is mass retrenchment in the public service which is worse than the current policy.
Cheers.
IBK
--
On 18 Aug 2016 18:47, "Toyin Falola" <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
--Can someone please confirm that a state in Nigeria, Benue, has decided to have a 4-day working week, saying that state workers should use Friday and weekend to farm?And that Governor Okorocha is planning the same?I want to think that the information is not correct.If it is correct, how do we convince "power" that productivity is key to economic development?TF
Toyin FalolaDepartment of HistoryThe University of Texas at Austin104 Inner Campus DriveAustin, TX 78712-0220USA512 475 7222 (fax)
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com .
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com .
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com .
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com .
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com .
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment