The chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has denied reports suggesting that he described the tax regulation currently in circulation as fake, saying his comments were misrepresented.
Oyedele made the clarification on Wednesday while speaking
on Arise Television’s Morning Show, following claims that key provisions of the
tax law had been altered.
He explained that during a media interview, a reporter had
drawn his attention to differences between sections of the law as published in
the official Gazette and a harmonised version attributed to the National
Assembly, asking whether the discrepancies amounted to alterations.
According to Oyedele, before that interview, he had come
across reports alleging that several sections of the law were substantially
altered, with the impression given that the claims originated from a House of
Representatives committee investigating the matter.
However, he said he became suspicious after noticing that
one of the cited sections did not exist in the Gazette. He disclosed that he
contacted a lawmaker said to be on the investigating committee, who told him
that the committee had not even met.
He said: “So first thing is in your opening comments. And
I’ve seen that quite a bit in the past couple of days, that I said the
regulation in circulation is fake. So that’s not what I said, what I said,
because I was also granting an interview, and the reporter displayed a section
of the law in the Gazette and then the similar session in quotes in the
harmonized version by the National Assembly, and was asking me whether that was
indeed an alteration.
“Before then, I’d seen this report about all these sections
that they claim were altered substantially, and the report was giving the
impression that this was a report of the House of Representative committee
investigating the matter.
“So I saw one of the sections which I’m going to show you
now, and I knew that was not in the Gazette, and they claim it was in the case
there, so I called one of the lawmakers in the committee, and I said, just to
clarify to you, you know, this your report, you reference something that does
not exist. And the guy said they haven’t even met.
“So apparently, some people decided to write what
alterations they thought were made, and it didn’t come from the committee
investigating it. Some people have done graphic design on top of it. So my
response was, I don’t think that it would be productive to start discussing
alleged alterations that we don’t know where it came from, and certainly not
from the House committee. So and then some people reported it as me saying that
the Gazette in circulation was fake. That’s not what I said.”
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com