CONTROVERSY has continued to trail the new property tax policy signed into law by Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State which has consolidated all land and tenement rates in a single law.
While signing the law, Oshiomhole said that it was meant for the rich to pay “a little more to provide for the many poor” and defaulters.
He called on relevant agencies including the state Board of Internal Revenue to ensure the implementation of the new law which he said would provide more funds for the government to provide social amenities and infrastructure for the low income earners who he said constitute 95 per cent of the population of the state.
“If the property class refuses to pay property tax, the security of their property cannot be guaranteed. This law is not targeted at anybody. We recognised that everybody needs to use land but we recognise that some people want land more than others. We know there are traditional houses and a whole family living in a small portion of land. This tax will not affect them at all because they are the people who need to be protected and I believe they constitute 95 per cent of the population, but modern buildings in rural areas occupying land mass of 100 by 100 feet will pay the tax.
“The whole idea is to encourage those who have to pay so that government will continue to deliver free education to the people. Nobody is above the law but we must defend the weak because tax laws are compulsory,” he said.
The new law has however generated various reactions from interest groups in the state. A group, Concerned Members of the Peoples Democratic Party Edo South senatorial district said the law was “draconian, anti-people and undemocratic.”
It said the law which it alleged was hurriedly passed last Wednesday, was meant to further impoverish the already poor masses and is also targeted at the rich Binis perceived as opposed to the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)- led administration in the state.
Leader of the group; Dr. Omokharo Friday who spoke with journalists yesterday, said the issue that should bother the people is how prudent the state government has managed the huge amount of money available to it in the past four years and not just getting money that is not accounted for.
“It is true that the government of the day needs money but there is one thing that is lacking in the government of the day. It is not just getting more money that is the issue. First of all, we look at how prudently the state has been spending her resources. We should look at whether those expenditures are justifiable; justifiable in the sense that whether the money we spend on roads or schools are supposed to be that same amount of money we are spending. It is no longer a story that a kilometre of road costs us over N1billion in Edo State and that is internationally abnormal, ” he said.
But Majority Leader of the House, Philip Shaibu yesterday told The Guardian: “The law is also to unify the state and the local council for effective collection of the taxes as against this money going into private pockets as it is presently. Most of the things there are not new. We only consolidated all of them into charge.