VAT: South South Govs To Face FG, North At Supreme Court
The South-South Governors’ Forum, also known as the BRACED Governors’ Council, Monday, resolved to join the suit at the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the Federal Government to collect Value Added Tax, VAT, in solidarity with Rivers and Lagos states.
BRACED is an acronym for the six states in the South-South zone: Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo and Delta states. Governors from the region declared their unequivocal support for the decision of states to collect VAT.
Chairman of the forum and Governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, while reading the communiqué at the end of the meeting, which lasted more than five hours at Government House, Port Harcourt, disclosed that the regional security outfit of the zone would be launched soon.
The crucial meeting was attended by five of the six governors from the zone. In attendance were Godwin Obaseki (Edo State), Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), Emmanuel Udom (Akwa-Ibom), Douye Diri (Bayelsa) and the host governor, Nyesom Wike.
Governor Ben Ayade of Cross Rivers State failed to show up and did not send a representative. Sources close to the Council attributed his action to Ayade’s recent defection from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking further, chairman of the forum noted that the BRACED Commission had established their state security organs and the forum has approved it as the regional security architecture.
Part of the communiqué read: “After an extensive deliberation, the Council resolved that the President and National Assembly should take necessary measures to review some unfair aspects of the recently signed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) to ensure fairness and equity. It urged that the amendment should include a clear definition of host communities and that the trustees should be appointed by state governments.
“The Forum called upon the President and the Federal Government to uphold the law establishing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) by appropriately constituting its Board. In addition, it expressed the hope that the Federal Government would make the forensic audit report public and deal justly and fairly with the report, with a view to strengthening the capacity of the NDDC to meet its obligations to the people of the region.
“The Forum regretted that the President and the Federal Government had generally failed to give reasoned consideration to requests made by the region during the dialogue with a special federal delegation led by Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, Chief of Staff to the President. Notable among the requests were the relocation of NNPC subsidiaries and IOCs headquarters to the Niger Delta and the completion of a number of federal projects in the region, notably roads.”
REACTING, the apex socio-cultural organisation of the South-South people, Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), described the resolution of South-South governors to join in the VAT/FG dispute at the Supreme Court as a welcome development. National Chairman of PANDEF, Chief Emmanuel Ibok Essien, spoke yesterday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital.
He said: “The governors’ resolution on joining the suit is a welcome development. And the implication is that when the Supreme Court makes its pronouncement it will affect all the states that joined in the suit. And if that pronouncement is in favour of the states, it means that automatically they will all benefit from the judgment of court.
“Those states will start collecting VAT, on their own. But if they are not joined as a party to the suit, they will not be beneficiary of the judgment given. It means they will now have to go to court again on their own. Therefore, PANDEF’s advice to all the Southern states is that they should join as a party to the suit.”
