Communication Minister Kicks Against FG’s Proposal to Impose 5% Tax on Calls, Text, Data

Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has kicked against the Federal Government’s plans to impose a 5% excise duty on telecommunications services in the country.

The minister, who spoke at the maiden edition of the Nigerian Telecommunications indigenous Content Expo, NTICE, in Lagos, said the sector, which was already drawing in massive interest, creating jobs, and enlarging huge revenue to the GDP, should not be inconvenienced with such taxes.

He said: “The 5 percent excise duty will overburden the industry. As a Minister, I was neither consulted nor obtained a memo to that effect. Even the appropriate lawmakers that were supposed to be talked with have also told me they were not.

”Things are not done that way. Besides condemning the tax, we will take every lawful step to guarantee that the tax does not stand.”

The minister also argued about the large percentage of importation of ICT and telecoms equipment into the country, even when some of these equipment could be acquired in the country.

He gave a marching order to all stakeholders that “henceforth, the Federal Government will not condone importation of anything into the country when it can be manufactured here in the country.

“The sector has to reasonably reduce importation. The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, and the National Office for the Promotion of Indigenous Content, NODIT, should carry out this policy.

“By 2025, we’ll be qualified to increase our indigenous content and decrease importation by about 20 percent.”

The Minister’s attack on the excise duty is coming after major stakeholders in the sector, including the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, ALTON, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, and National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, NATCOMS, also kicked against the motion, interpreting it as anti-people, provocative, unusual, cold and unreliable.

At a stakeholders’ forum organized in Abuja by the NCC to shed light on its proposed commission, they also complained that such imposition would help aggravate the misery of the Nigerian masses who already had been pushed into suffering and severe poverty.

The new five percent Excise Duty is part of the new finance act signed into law by the President in 2020. It is meant to be received by the Nigerian Customs Service, and President Buhari gave a ruling that it should be carried out on all telecoms service providers in the country, also on all local and foreign goods and services.

The Minister of Finance, Budget, and Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, had also at that event, persuaded stakeholders to assist the commission, saying the decision was informed by the dwindling revenue of the federal government from oil and gas.

She said other countries in Africa, involving Malawi, Uganda, and Tanzania, among others, have all keyed into the revenue generation structure.