The Senate Finance Committee has announced that it would hold a public hearing on the tax reform measures for two days starting on February 24.
The committee’s chairman, Sani Musa, discussed the planned hearing on Wednesday.
“We intend to take on two of the bills on each day of the session for the press to be fully abreast with what we intend to do,” the senator said.
“It is our duty as legislators to do the needful for the good of this country. We are all representatives of different tribes, religions, and geography and we are Nigerians.
“What we will work towards giving Nigerians are laws that will put us on track economically. And by the grace of God, we will succeed.”
According to Musa, enough investment would raise Nigeria’s economy to the level of industrialised countries in areas like infrastructure, education, and agriculture.
Citing President Bola Tinubu’s guarantees of non-interference in the tax bill proceedings, he also expressed optimism over the public hearing.
Jumoke Oduwole, the Minister of Industry, Commerce, and Investment; Lateef Fagbemi, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice; and Wale Edun, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, have all been invited by the committee to attend the hearings, the lawmaker said.
“We have also invited the minister of petroleum resources, the chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service and the statistician-general of the federation so that he will be able to come and give us his own submission,” he said.
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Last week, the four bills — the Nigeria Tax Bill, the Tax Administration Bill, the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill, and the Nigeria Revenue Service Bill — scaled second reading at the House of Representatives after an extensive debate by lawmakers.
On October 3, Tinubu asked the national assembly to pass the bills, which the senate approved for a second reading in November.
The bills initially faced opposition from the National Economic Council (NEC) and northern governors, who argued that the proposed laws could harm the region’s interests.
They urged the national assembly to reject the bills, demanding fair and equitable implementation across all regions.
However, in January, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) endorsed the bills after agreeing on an “equitable” VAT-sharing formula.
