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From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has been told not to shift the blames of his new tax policies on former governor Segun Oni.
This was contained in a statement by the Director of Media and Publicity, Segun Oni Movements(SOM), Jackson Adebayo and made available to newsmen in Ado-Ekiti, on Sunday.
Adebayo stated that SOM is aware of surreptitious move by the ruling All Progressives Congress government to join Segun Oni in adducing the reasons for imposing additional tax on the people of the state in the name of Ekiti State Land Use charge which is being protested by the masses.
He accused the government of deliberately imposing this draconian tax on the people of the state to mop up money for the forthcoming governorship election in the state but met wide protest from house owners who have been overtaxed already with or without any commensurable incomes.
According to the Movements, in an attempt to wriggle out of the protest the government decided to blackmail the then Segun Oni government of initiating the policy before he was removed.
Adebayo maintained that the APC government is becoming jittery as they are meeting brick walls in selling their candidates to the people of the state hence their desperation to blackmail Oni whom they consider to be their major problem in the race.
“We want to state categorically that at no time did Oni ever contemplated imposing any additional tax during his tenure talk less of such an unbearable tax like this.”
Debunking the claim that the tax was meant to extort the people, the Chairman, Ekiti State Board of Internal Revenue Service, Muyiwa Ogunmilade, said the Land Use Charge was signed into Law in 2013 to boost the state revenue profile.
Ogunmilade said tax payment has become a way of generating revenue to provide infrastructure and social services to the people, saying Ekiti has one of the best and affordable land use charge in the country.
“The tax used to be called Tenement rate, neighbourhood improvement levy and grant rent in the past. But now, the government had abolished the three taxes and introduced Land Use charge that is being shared between the state and local governments.
“All the States of the federation had enacted the law for over a decade, which Ekiti had just started now.
“The present government of Governor Kayode Fayemi is not interested in extorting Ekiti people, but to serve them, by providing Infrastructures with the money it makes from legitimate avenues like taxation”.
