•Senator Seriake Dickson
Following the controversy trailing the Tax Reform Bills, Senator Seriake Dickson (PDP: Bayelsa West) yesterday said that heavens will not fall if the bills are passed by both chambers of the National Assembly.
Senator Dickson, who chairs the Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, made the declaration while fielding questions from journalists at the National Assembly, reports Daily Independent.
“The Tax Reform Bills passed for second reading by the Senate, last week Thursday, despite some oppositions against them, will be passed by the National Assembly.
“Arguments for or against the bills should not be based on sentiments but facts and statistics.
“If the National Assembly could pass the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), nothing will stop the nation’s legislature, to do the same thing with the tax bills,” he said.
He also allayed fears in some quarters that the planned public hearing on the matter could be chaotic if the event was not postponed for further consultations.
He urged anyone or group of people who are opposed to the bills to attend the public hearing with facts if they have issues with any sections of the proposed fiscal legislation.
Dickson maintained that if the National Assembly could pass the PIA containing 3% statutory fees payable to the host communities despite the Niger Delta leaders insistence on 10% recommended in the executive bill, that of the tax reform bills won’t be an exception.
The three percent fee is operating expenses or expenditure (OPEX) of the previous year being remitted to host communities by oil companies as stipulated in the PIA 2021.
The former governor of Bayelsa State said the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua proposed 10% for the host communities but that the National Assembly passed three percent after about two decades without protest.
“The Senate has passed the bills for second reading. Public hearing will take place and people should get ready to present their positions.
“The tax bill is a law like every other law and it has to go through the normal legislative process.
“Right now, taxes from Bayelsa State are paid to Lagos State and I don’t want that to continue.
“When there is consumption of any good or services from any state it should be calculated and paid to that state.
“Now there is an opportunity to review the tax laws, to correct the anomalies and that’s why I’m in support.
“I know there are states that are feeling that when they apply the new sharing formula, they will earn less. It’s for them to raise those issues and bring the statistics. I don’t go by sentiments. I go by what is right and in the national interest,” he said.
Asked whether there won’t be uproar during the public hearing if wider consultations were not carried out, Dickson said there would be nothing like that.
He said, “Forget about uproar, there will be no uproar. Public hearing is an opportunity for people to present their matters, and nobody is going to be intimidated by uproar.
“The PIA was passed. We wanted 10% which was what Yar’Adua proposed. They (federal lawmakers) reduced it to 3%. Heavens did not fall. This tax reform bills will pass and heavens will not fall.”
