Fayose, Aregbesola Introduce New Taxes In Desperation

FAYOSE-IN-COURT.FEDERAL-HIGH-COURT-ADO-EKITI-035-e1412150007600
Ekiti state governor Ayo Fayose and his Osun state counterpart, Rauf Aregbesola, have introduced tough tax rates in their states in desperate attempts to raise money internally.

States have not been getting a lot of federal money lately, and governors have been struggling to raise money to pay workers as well as finance projects. But these governors have now come up with new tax systems to beef up internally generated revenue.

This term in Osun, the Aregbesola-led government imposed a tax on parents whose children go to state-owned schools meaning parents now have to pay a N4, 500 tax that covers 2013 to 2015, and children whose parents do not pay up get sent home from school.

Sources say this taxation will continue next year too.

In Ekiti, the governor has set up a new system of taxes and fines covering many things from traffic to trade and education and has begun enforcing them on shops and small businesses, from about N10,000 upward a year.

Also, parents whose children go to state-owned primary schools now have to pay N1,000 tax and other new levies costing another N1,000. But before, primary education was free in the state, where parents did not have to pay any of these.

A taxi driver in Ado Ekiti informed Naij.com that, “Fayose is just bringing crazy taxes. Now if you want to kill a cow for a party, you should pay N1,000 to the government for each cow.

“If you want to lay the foundation of your house, you pay a levy to the government for that. If you park your car by the road in certain places, you’ll pay N10,000 fine or they’ll seize your car. I’ve never seen anything like this before in Ekiti.”

Cynthia from Osogbo said about the state governor that, “Aregbesola said we should pay N4,500 or they’ll send our children from school. But my sales have been poor because my customers say they haven’t been paid. I had to struggle to raise the money since I can’t afford to transfer my children to a private school. We don’t know what next the government is going to ask us to start paying for.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *