The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has publicly addressed and dismissed claims that the recently enacted Nigeria’s tax reform laws were secretly altered after their passage by the National Assembly.
Recall that raising a matter of privilege last week, Rep. Abdulsammad Dasuki (PDP, Sokoto), alleged that the contents of the tax laws as gazetted differed from what lawmakers debated, voted on and passed in the National Assembly.
Raising the issue under Order Six, Rule Two of the House Rules, Dasuki said his legislative privilege had been breached.
He told the House that after the passage of the tax bills, he reviewed the gazetted copies alongside the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, as well as the harmonised version adopted by both chambers, and observed what he described as discrepancies.
“I was here, I gave my vote and it was counted, and I am seeing something completely different,” he said.
Dasuki stated that copies of the gazetted laws obtained from the Ministry of Information did not, in his view, align with the versions approved by both the House and the Senate.
He stressed that his intervention was not a motion but an attempt to draw the attention of the House to what he described as a serious issue affecting the legislative process.
The lawmaker urged the Speaker to ensure that all relevant documents, including the harmonised versions, Votes and Proceedings of both chambers, and the gazetted copies in circulation, are presented for scrutiny by the House.
However, speaking on Channels Television’s Morning Brief on Monday, Oyedele dismissed the claims as false.
“Before you can say there is a difference between what was gazetted and what was passed, we have what has not been gazetted. We don’t have what was passed,” Oyedele said.
“The official harmonised bills certified by the clerk, which the National Assembly sent to the President, we don’t have a copy to compare. Only the lawmakers can say authoritatively what was sent.
“It should be the House of Representatives or Senate version. It should be the harmonised version certified by the clerk. Even me, I cannot say that I have it. I only have what was presented to Mr President to sign,” he added.
Oyedele said he contacted the House of Representatives committee over a controversial provision, Section 41(8), which reportedly required the payment of a 20 percent deposit.
“I know that particular provision is not in the final gazette, but it was in the draft gazette. Some people decided that they should write the report of the committee before the committee had met, and it had circulated everywhere,” he said.
According to him, the committee informed him that it had not met on the issue.
“What is out there in the media did not come from the committee set up by the House of Representatives. I think we should allow them do the investigation,” Oyedele added.
