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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS) has threatened to pursue its planned legal action against the federal government over the the 5 percent excise duty on telecom services unless it is is completely withdrawn.
NATCOMS President, Deolu Ogunbanjo, had on Monday, told DailySun that the Association would halt its plans to sue the Federal Government following the suspension of the 5 percent excise duty. But in a phone conversation on Tuesday , Ogunbanjo revealed that that decision had been reversed.
According to him, the association now seeks a total withdrawal of the proposal to avoid government from lifting the suspension and going forward with the tax later.
Ogunbanjo said: “We are holding a National Executive Council meeting of the association on Friday to make sure that the tax is completely withdrawn and not only suspended. The meeting will determine if we should proceed with the court case or not because suspending it means they can bring it on later.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, had announced the suspension on Monday at the inauguration of the committee on the review of the 5 percent excise duty in the telecoms sector and hailed President Buhari for granting his prayers. On why he kicked against the excise duty, Pantami said the ICT sector was over burdened by so many 41 categories of taxes at the federal and state levels.
However, the Director-general of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, while speaking on a television programme on Wednesday, insisted that the tax remains in effect as the Budget Office of the Federation and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning have not been advised about the suspension.
Akabueze stressed that the five per cent tax on telecom services is part of the federal government’s expected revenue to fund the medium-term expenditure framework and that the bill had been passed into law.
