By Aliyu DANLADI
The Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) said it has put machinery in place to check the activities of fake revenue agents who defraud local councils of legitimate revenue.
The association said it had also inaugurated a special task force for the collection of vehicular annual taxes and levies.
The Chairman of the Special Taskforce Mr Mohammed Abubakar, said this when he briefed newsmen on the activities of his group in Enugu on Wednesday.
Abubakar said the association had not authorised anybody or groups to collect such levies on behalf of ALGON.
He said it had become imperative to make their position known on the issue of vehicular annual taxes and levies which was the exclusive preserve of ALGON.
He said the 1999 Constitution had empowered local councils to collect such levies and taxes as also approved by the Joint Tax Board (JTB).
“ALGON disowns and dissociates itself from any person or association parading itself as consultant or coordinator of ALGON on the above issue.
“We, hereby, affirm that a special taskforce has been constituted by local government councils in Nigeria to discharge such responsibilities,” he said.
Abubakar said the primary duties of the special taskforce were to eradicate the menace of printing, distribution and issuance of illegal documents to motorists.
He also said the taskforce would do away with multiplicity of taxes and levies by dubious practitioners, which he noted, had made life difficult to motorists.
The chairman said they would also fashion out modalities for easy identification of genuine revenue consultants with a view to regulating illegalities in the process of issuing their documents to motorists.
“ALGON National President, Mr Gombo Kagara, has directed that the state coordinators of the taskforce be inaugurated forthwith.
“The problem is that most of these persons that call themselves revenue consultants are merely consulting for themselves as whatever revenue they generate does not get to us.
“They go about duping people by collecting levies from unsuspecting motorists. All these amount to multiplicity of taxes which affect the ease of doing business in parts of the country,” he said.
Abubakar said the task force would work with all the security agencies to curb the fraud in revenue collection.
“We also expect the security agencies to profile anyone parading himself as consultant for ALGON in respect of revenue,” Abubakar said.
