Why Northern Governors opposed VAT Bill —Gov Sule

Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, has said that the Northern Governors’ Forum (NGF) are against the Value Added Tax (VAT) bill currently being deliberated in the National Assembly.

Speaking in an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Tuesday night, Sule noted that the bill will be unfair to the region.

Arising from a meeting on Sunday, the NGF chaired by Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State, had rejected the derivation-based model for VAT distribution in the new tax bill currently before the National Assembly for deliberation.

Sule explained that the governors were not against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saying they brought him into power.

He said: “We can’t bring in President Tinubu and then oppose him. If you look at the composition of the meeting you will see that there are people from the APC and the PDP. Some don’t even have a political party. We sat down and took the decision together.

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“Some are traditional rulers. If you look at the law, it will be unfair to the north. By the time you say you are going to take something out of the sharing of the FAC and then say you are going to share something similar to something like that because that is the understanding we have based on the proposal. It’s going to be another 13% derivation.

“So, the states that have almost no VAT at the moment will end up actually with the shorter area of the stick. And you know, the 19 states of the north are generating very little when it comes to VAT at the moment.

“It’s very clear. I worked for some of these multi-national. I know how VAT is paid. When we were importing raw material at Dangote at Apapa port. We paid VAT first and then the finished product had VAT added to it.”

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