Chairman, Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, says some Nigerians rain curses on him and his family over the tax reform bills.
Oyedele disclosed this during an event for the presentation of the report of a technical committee set up by the League of Northern Democrats (LND) to review the controversial tax reform bills on Thursday in Abuja.
But he added that he’s not deterred by their curses as his assignment was a public service to bring economic change to the country.
Recall that the tax reform bills have generated heated debates across the country, with the majority of the push backs coming from the North.
Many governors and some leaders from the region contested that the tax reform bills, which also led to open confrontations in both chambers of the National Assembly, were meant to favour Lagos State and other narrow interests, as well as to shortchange the North.
But Oyedele insisted that the recommendations made by his committee on tax reform were not influenced by anyone as it came through robust discussions and engagements to revolutionise the tax system in the country.
He said, “Even on social media, you need to see the number of people cursing me and my family. I don’t take it personally. I just go through and say is there any useful comment that we can work on? We pick it and we work on it. It’s public service. You’re not meant to be appreciated and praised every time. It doesn’t happen anywhere in the world.
“Public service is public service. You are accountable to the people and you must take that very seriously. So our approach to this is that some Nigerians were asked to do this for our country and I had the privilege of leading that team and we did our best but we’re not in any way suggesting that our best is the best for Nigeria.
“You cannot have more than 200 million people and you then assume that about 100 people are the smartest. You know that that would be arrogance at a different level. So this engagement helped us to even improve the quality of what we have done.
“I’ve said this in a number of fora and I’ll say it again. There’s not a single person in the world, not World Bank, not IMF, not United Nations, not Mr President, not any governor, not any minister, past or present, not president, past or present, no one dictated anything to us. Every single thing you see in all those bills were the outcome of debates by the committee that is representative nationally.
“We have people from all the geo-political zones. We have more than 20 government institutions. We have all manner of engagement, including with people with disability. But we know that engagements will never end. In fact, if the bills are passed, it doesn’t mean that we should stop engaging. We should continue.”
Oyedele who reiterated that there are no perfect laws, stressed that even when such laws have been enacted, engagements would give feedback on its implementation and the needed areas of improvement.
“So, I’m eagerly looking forward to the outcome of this event today and I can give you one assurance. Every single point you send to us will be carefully considered and we’ll get back to you with our own explanations. So once we have superior reasoning and superior arguments, we bow to it very quickly because we have no agenda other than the agenda for Nigeria,” he added.
