A report submitted to the National Economic Council (NEC) has revealed plans to work with internal revenue agencies to harmonise tax payments, as there is a “multiplicity of charges”.
The Sub-national Environment Survey report was submitted by the Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Jumoke Oduwole, at the Presidential Villa during a virtual event chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
She noted, to journalists, that in the report issues like poor electricity supply and heavy taxing weighed on the productivity of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
Oduwole said, “Businesses have said that electricity supply is beat low, the hours are low. Then, we will be working with the governors and federal agencies to look into areas like that.
“SMEs also talked about road infrastructure, they talked about regulatory challenges, paying of taxes, the multiplicity of charges.
“So, we will be working with the state’s internal revenue agencies to ensure that there is harmony.
“So, the Ease of Doing Business Councils reports to the states’ executive councils and they implement the report just like PEBEC and FEC; so, the system is replicated across the country.
“We believe that as we continue to drill down into Nigeria, progressively making it easier to do business, our productivity will increase as we support our SMEs.
“We make sure that on competitiveness, we are working actively at it even as AFCFTA has gone into life and the journey of continuous improvement and institutionalization of the reform agenda is the top priority for the administration.”
She noted that an empirical survey was conducted by global advisory firm KPMG and that “The methodology framework had earlier been approved by NEC as far back as 2018 and we have four homegrown indicator areas on which the survey is based which are infrastructure and security; transparency and access to information; the regulatory environment and skills and labour readiness in each state and the Federal Capital Territory.”
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