Governors from the southern region of Nigeria have declared their support for the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) by state governments, in place of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
They made the declaration on Thursday at a meeting of the Southern Governors’ Forum held at the Government House in Enugu State.
Chairman of the Forum and Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, made the position of the governors known in a communique issued at the end of the meeting.
According to him, the meeting resolved to support the position that the collection of VAT falls within the powers of the states.
The governors reaffirmed their commitment to fiscal federalism and stressed the need for the southern states to pursue its inclusion in the Nigerian Constitution, through the ongoing constitutional amendment.
To achieve this, they advised the states to leverage the legislative competence of their respective State Houses of Assembly, as well as their representatives in the National Assembly.
Ahead of the general elections in 2023, the governors insisted that the next Nigerian leader must come from the South.
They commended the rate at which members were enacting the law prohibiting the open grazing of cattle in line with the uniform template and called on others yet to do so to follow suit.
Similarly, the governors lauded the Nigerian Governors’ Forum for its handling of issues around the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and ownership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
At the meeting, they called for the total functioning of the agreed regional security outfits to ensure the security of lives and properties of the people of the region.
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