Tuesday <strong>27</strong> <strong>Mar</strong>ch <strong>2018</strong> We get customers’ BVN from CBN to track VAIDS defaulters - OGIRS RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta Chairman of Ogun State Internal Revenue Service (OGIRS), Adekunle Adeosun, says the state-owned revenue board will soon have access to all customers Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to track anybody who fails to declare assets and income under the Federal Government Tax Amnesty scheme tagged, “Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS). The disclosure was made on Monday in Abeokuta on the heels of the <strong>Mar</strong>ch 31, <strong>2018</strong>, expiration of the tax amnesty scheme launched by Federal Government in July 2017. Adeosun says at the expiration of the scheme there would penalty and prosecution instituted against any culpable defaulters, and there would not be any waivers for anybody again. Speaking at a briefing with some journalists, Adeosun said, “<strong>Mar</strong>ch 31st, <strong>2018</strong> is the deadline for Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS). VAIDS is an Executive Order signed by Professor Yemi Osinbajo in July 2017, and it is to expire <strong>Mar</strong>ch 31st, <strong>2018</strong>. It is to give tax amnesty to all the people that declare their assets and income within the stipulated time. “It covers assets and income on rental, dividends, profits on all contracts, payment receipts in Nigeria and abroad, among others. So, <strong>Mar</strong>ch 31st is the deadline and anybody who does not comply with it will face prosecution and will be penalised. “We have information on everybody. One thing that I will tell you is, I don’t think there is any exchange of information collaboration that the Federal Government has not signed with major corporations, countries of the world and major bodies. “This is disclosure of information for financial regulations. Also, the CBN has agreed to give us BVNs of all people that have accounts in all Nigerian banks. They have agreed to give us information and very soon, we will have that.” Also speaking on new strategies put in place to collect taxes due for government this year, the OGIRS chairman said effective electronic technology would be deployed to monitor sales in bars, hotels, restaurants, event centres, pools and lottery centres, saying: “We have consumption tax of 5% in Ogun State which is chargeable on hotels, restaurants, bars and event centres for food and drinks that the public consume on their premises, it is not payable by the establishments, but it is paid by the consumers. ExecuJet base in Lagos granted free trade zone status ment, the company will be allowed to keep stocks of parts for the aircraft manufacturers. This will reduce the time needed to supply such parts to customers in the West African country, which will benefit both regional airlines and business jet operators there. According to the aviation company official, the FTZ is the latest addition to its services in Nigeria, after welcoming a number of manufacturers to our facility in 2017. In his words, “Our MRO in Lagos is on an exciting trajectory, and we expect this to continue as we serve our customers with evermore competitive pricing to match the quality, performance and efficiency that ExecuJet demonstrates on a local and a global scale.” ExecuJet is part of the Luxaviation Group. It provides a wide range of aviation services, including the management of privately and commercially registered aircraft, charter, fixed base operations as well as MRO. It has a major facility at South Africa’s Lanseria International Airport, north west of Johannesburg and south west of Pretoria. Uproar in PH as FG attempts to change YouWin from grants to all winners to ‘soft loan for lucky few’ IGNATIUS CHUKWU & INNOCENT IWARA Hundreds of YouWin Connect winners who trained in Port Harcourt out of the 5,000 that participated in the exercise in 25 centres in Nigeria last week protested when a representative of the Federal Government allegedly announced new rules, especially the cancellation of grants, now replaced with ‘soft loans to lucky ones.’ The 5,000 participants emerged from a total of 61,000 applicants after rigorous screening exercises and were asked to proceed to the 25 centres to undertake in-class training for three days on entrepreneurship and business module canvas to help them understand how to use the module to prepare business plans. Problem however started when a representative from the Federal Ministry of Finance, John Erikoro, allegedly told participants on Wednesday, <strong>Mar</strong>ch 21, that, despite being termed ‘winners,’ not every one of them was going to receive funding for their businesses anymore. Erikoro rather said: “You should get it (the fund) if you are lucky and among those that would be selected.” At this point, it was gathered that MIKE OCHONMA Aviation company, ExecuJet, said on Monday that its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in Lagos had been designated a free trade zone (FTZ) by the Nigerian authorities. As a result, spare parts and services supplied by ExecuJet to its customers in Nigeria’s commercial capital will now be exempt from value added tax (VAT) and customs dues. The company further said these savings would be passed on to its customers. This should result in savings of 10% to 15% or even more on supply and MRO costs. Obtaining the FTZ took approximately two years, during which time the ExecuJet team had to demonstrate how the FTZ would benefit Lagos and Nigeria as a whole. As reported by Gavin Kiggen, ExecuJet vice president, Africa, “We’re very proud now to announce the approval of the FTZ in Lagos, and the successful negotiation of zero VAT and zero duties for Execu- Jet customers.” As part of the agreethe participants went rowdy, protesting and demanding more explanation. Erikoro allegedly explained further that ‘fund managers’ had been raised to decide what and what business to fund. This was seen as a clear deviation from what participants knew as the rule before applying for the programme and undertaking the training. The participants said they interpreted the explanation to mean an introduction of favouritism and nepotism, especially when Erikoro allegedly said some businesses within the chains of aquaculture and shea butter were chosen in Abuja and Lagos for a pilot study and funding, prior to the training. To compound issues, participants were allegedly told that even the few would-befunded businesses would rather get ‘soft loans,’ and not grants. “Let me tell you, it is not a grant, it is soft loan; a very soft loan,” Erikoro was quoted to have said. At this point, participants allegedly began venting their disappointments. “When we got the message from YouWin, it read ‘you are now winners’, and then all of a sudden winners have been turned into something differe n t ”. C002D5556 ENDURANCE OKAFOR Spending more than $1.6 billion in Nigeria, even though grinding poverty remains and for many an absence of political leadership, Bill Gates in his visit to Nigeria, stressed on how the quality and quantity of investment in the education and health sector of Africa’s biggest economy is not good enough. “Nigeria has young people, but the current quality and quantity of investment in this young generation in health and education is just not good enough,” Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Corporation said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Nigeria health sector in the proposed <strong>2018</strong> budget was allocated N340.45 billion. This represents 3.9 percent of the total N8.6 trillion expected to be used to fund the entire budget for the year. The allocation is however, less than the 4.16 percent and 4.23 percent made to the health sector by the government in the 2017 and 2016 budgets respectively. Comparing Nigeria with its per of Africa’s largest BUSINESS DAY A7 NEWS Nigeria’s investment in health, education not good enough- Bill Gates economies, South Africa had spent $46 billion on health between 2014 and 2017, while Africa’s largest economy had only managed $3 billion within the period, according to analysis by <strong>BusinessDay</strong>. This is despite the fact that Nigeria is home to some 180 million people, which is three times the size of South Africa’s 55 million population. Nigeria’s education sector on the other hand was yet again allocated much lower than the 26 percent of national budget recommended by the United Nations, in its <strong>2018</strong> education budget. The global organization recommended the budgetary benchmark to enable nations adequately cater for rising education demands. The Nigeria education sector was allocated only 7.04 percent of the N8.6 trillion budgeted in for expenditure in the period under review. The amount allocated to the sector is N605.8 billion, with N435.1 billion for recurrent expenditure, N61.73 billion for capital expenditure and N109.06 billion for the Universal Basic Education Commission.
A8 BUSINESS DAY C002D5556 Tuesday <strong>27</strong> <strong>Mar</strong>ch <strong>2018</strong>
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