Taxpayers owe Anambra over N514b, AIRS chairman declares

By : Uzoma Nzeagwu (Awka) and Sodiq Omolaoye (Abuja)

Date: 24 March 2022 3:45am WAT

[FILES] Candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Professor Charles Soludo, also known as Cee Cee Soludo, speaks after signing of peace accord, a commitment to peaceful elections by all contestants ahead of next November 6 governorship election in Akwa, Anambra State in southeast Nigeria, on November 4, 2021. - Nigeria's southeast Anambra state holds elections for local governor's office on NOvember 6, 2021 in a ballot being widely watched as barometer for the country's 2023 presidential vote. More than 30,300 police have been dispatched to secure the state where separatist tensions have been on the rise and the vote will test electoral authorities abilities to organise a ballot in difficult circumstances. (Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP)

Obiano meets bail conditions as developer tasks Soludo on housing challenges

Outgoing chairman of the Anambra State Internal Revenue Service (AIRS), Dr. David Nzekwu, has lamented that in the last four years, taxpayers owe the state government arrears of N514 billion.

Nzekwu, who disclosed this at a media briefing, yesterday, in Awka, the state capital, also explained that the figure amounted to all taxes owed by over 2.1 million potential taxpayers registered in the state’s digital database.

He hinted that the state Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) profile increased from N17 billion per year to N30.9 billion at the end of 2021 since he assumed office in March 2018.

He further disclosed that the number of taxpayers in the state increased from 11,000 to 506,000 during the same period due to structural reforms, which expanded the state’s tax base.

“To resolve the challenges of revenue administration, we set up an architecture for Information Technology deployment, which will encourage members of the public to do transactions with us,” he said.

He said the service had set up a system that would bill taxpayers and also receipt all taxes, adding that this had resulted in Anambra Social Service Identity (ANSSID) number where each taxpayer’s account gets registered on the government’s database.

BESIDES, former governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, may regain his freedom from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) custody today, as he has met the administrative bail conditions of the anti-graft agency.

A senior official at the commission, however, told The Guardian that EFCC operatives were verifying some of the documents he (Obiano) submitted in fulfilment of the bail terms.

The Guardian learnt that among other conditions, Obiano was ordered to produce two directors on grade level 17 in the Federal Capital Territory service and two directors, who must be property owners in Maitama, Asokoro or Wuse district of Abuja to regain his freedom.

MEANWHILE Managing Director of Daniel Bob Group Limited, Chief Daniel Orji, has urged the Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, to address the housing deficit in Awka and its environs by collaborating with private sector developers.

Orji made the call, while speaking with newsmen in Awka, lamenting that the increasing housing shortage in Awka and other parts of the state, was due to the failure of previous administrations to invest in the sector.

He also charged Soludo to audit land allocations in the capital territory and set a timeline within which the owners should develop dormant plots.