Jude Diugwu
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu has said that the major aim of the tax reform bills is to raise the revenue profile of the country and also support investments both locally and internationally.
He disclosed this at a meeting on UK -Nigeria Strategic Dialogue with the Deputy Leader, House of Lords and United Kingdom Minister of African Affairs, Lord Collins of Highbury on Wednesday in London.
Kalu, who said that Nigeria is the right destination for investments, called on the UK business and the international community as a whole to increase their investment ratio in the country.
He said: “Our tax laws have been obsolete. So, what we are trying to do now is to streamline them in line with global best practices.
“The aim is to drive revenue and also support some of the investors who have irregular tax laws affecting their revenue, streamlining them to know what they are paying for. Not multiple taxation on the same issues.”
Highlighting the legislative agenda of the 10th House of Representatives, Kalu said that the parliament has prioritised national security, law reforms, economic growth and development, social sector reforms and development, inclusion and open parliament, foreign policy, climate change and environmental sustainability for improvement.
According to him, these included increased women participation in politics with creation of special seats to increase the number of women in Nigeria’s National and State Houses of Assembly; local government reforms to improve the autonomy of local government councils and their ability to deliver on development; state policing to address localided security challenges in Nigeria; improved human rights to strengthen Nigeria’s compliance with international human rights standards by empowering relevant Committees of the House to exercise more oversight of the police and our security services; supporting reforms to improve the judiciary and enable them to perform better.
He expressed gratitude to the UK government and Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) for support to the parliament for relevant institutional development programmes, training workshops and consultative sessions to better equip the legislators.
On the security in the South East, Kalu said: “I adopted the non kinetic model in south east Nigeria where civil war left marks that birthed conflicts and agitations which the barrels of guns over the years in the form of military intervention failed to heal. Peace In South East Project- PISE-P became the new platform for intervention”.
He said that the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has also subscribed to peace. “In order to achieve the peace we are looking for in that south eastern region, we have to bring Nnamdi Kanu out of incarceration because a lot of criminals are leveraging his incarceration as a reason to commit various heinous crimes and we cannot continue to allow that.
“He’s opening up lines for conversations. And we are doing the conversation and he is watching and getting advice on how to go about it. I am actually one of those who approached him for his release. I am from the region and I know what that would do for my region.
“And I have visited him. And I asked him, do you still want to continue with the agitations? That was before the president signed into law the South East Development Commission (SEDC) and he said, if the president signs it, it means he’s favourably disposed to rebuilding the south east that went through war and that’s the Biafra I am for.
“The Biafra I am looking for is good roads, hospitals, schools for our people. That’s it. The Biafra I am looking for is not to be President or take a State. It’s for that place to be rebuilt.”
In a similar meeting with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) led by Hon. Kate Osamor at Westminster on the sidelines.of the UK-Nigeria Strategic Dialogue, Kalu also urged UK Parliament to continue supporting the advancement of democracy in Nigeria.
Osamor commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the establishment of the South East Development Commission noting that her familiarity with the post-civil war challenges of Nigeria gives her the confidence that the Commission was a great catalyst towards fostering greater integration in the South East region.
