‘Enact laws to block leakages in non-oil sector’, Senator tells National Assembly

Senator Yusuf Yusuf (All Progressives Congress, Taraba Central), yesterday, called on the National Assembly to enact laws to block leakages and other irregularities in the non-oil sector.Yusuf, who disclosed this while fielding question from the media, said it had become expedient for the legislature to assist the executive in blocking such leakages to improve revenue generation for the country.

According to him, the lack of law to punish non-remittance of tax and non-declaration of dividends, among other things, has led to a lot of leakages in the sector.“There should be a way in the National Assembly can make laws that will generate income for government, for instance laws on taxation and dividends. On dividends, for instance, how much do we control what companies declare?

“If a company decides to declare dividend on the 100 per cent of profit after tax, what does the law say about it. We should look into that. There are companies that are making tremendous profit after tax, and they are declaring 50, 60 or 80 per cent of it.

“I know they would say the dividends are taxable, but we should look at it and make laws to check this, ’’he said.On the contributory pension fund, the lawmaker called for the money to be used to fund researches that would generate income for the pensioners and the country at large.He said there was no sense in keeping such a huge amount of money, while there was a dire need to revamp the economy.

He admitted that the fund had not been put into use for fear of being squandered or diverted; he assured that the Federal Government’s zero tolerance to corruption would help to check recklessness.“The money should be used to fund researches that are mature for production of goods and services. The implication is that there must be certainty that when we put this money to finance production, we will get a return on the money.

“I know some people will be skeptical about this, because in the past, such monies were invested, but nothing positive came out of it, instead pensioners were denied what was due them.“That is why this government is saying dealing with corruption is one of the pillars to a better economy. Probably, in the past, there might have been a lot of corruption that is why governments then were not able to effectively use the pension fund for the benefit of the economy.“If it is managed very well even the pension fund will be improved upon and they are going to get better return on their pension,’’ he said.