Mohammed Shosanya
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the exemption of 5 per cent excise duty on telecommunications services in Nigeria.
Prof. Isa Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, disclosed this at a media briefing on Tuesday in Abuja.
Pantami had faulted the government’s plan to implement the tax,adding that the telecommunications sector is already overburdened by excessive and multiple taxations while Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, had also insisted that the Federal Government would go ahead to implement the five percent excise duty on telecommunications services.
Speaking after the submission of the Committee’s Report to President Buhari, the Communication Minister revealed that the President had approved the exemption of five per cent excise duty on telecommunications services in the country.
He said: “I am glad to say and report to Nigerians that President Buhari has approved the exemption of digital economy sector from the five percent excise duty.This is because of the strength of the argument we presented to him that the citizens are suffering and recommended to him that other sector should contribute their own quota to revenue generation in Nigeria.”
He lamented that exercise duty was introduced without due process, adding that the stakeholders in the ICT sectors were not carried along when the idea was conceived.
He maintained that the introduction of the five percent five percent excise duty on telecommunications services was done without recourse to the law and in bad fate, adding that the telecom sector is already over-burdened with 41 categories of taxes, levies and charges.
He added: ” Arguably, this will be in the global record, there are 41 categories of taxes, levies and charges in the telecom sector, as it is today in Nigeria.So, there is no justification for addition of more burden to the sector that is doing well when it comes to our economy.
“Based on the report presented to me by the Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC), all the 41 categories were captured and presented.The Presidential Committee on Excise Duty completed its work on February 5,2023.We reviewed the report and summarised the major arguments. The committee agreed that there was no need for 5percent exercise duty in the telecommunications sector.”
The minister further pointed out that the telecommunications sector has been contributing significantly to the growth of the Nigerian economy, noting that the addition of more burden to the sector could harm and cripple it.
He said that in the last three years, that the ICT sector has contributed hugely to the economy, as it contributed 18.4 percent to the nation’s GDP in the fourth quarter of 2022.