Featured
Minister Of Youth Takes DY.ng To African Economic Conference

…Confident of meeting target of training youth in digital skills
Joel Ajayi
Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr. Sunday Dare on Tuesday presented a component of an initiative of his Ministry, Digital Youth Nigeria (DY.ng), to a gathering of continental stakeholders at a panel session of the 2019 African Economic Conference in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt with the theme Jobs, Entrepreneurship and Capacity Development for African Youth.
He expressed the confidence that the target of equipping one million youth with digital skills is attainable given the initiative of other stakeholders like the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The Minister, during a session on Ministerial Dialogue on Youth Employment Policy, spoke on the workings of DY.ng, under which the Ministry will train 500,000 youth in digital skills at various youth centres across the six geo-political zones in conjunction with private sector partners.
Mr Dare who also participated in another session on “Enhancing demand-driven digital and technical skills development” said “We are looking at digital literacy at the bottom of the pyramid. Those who are not graduates, with primary school certificates will also be trained in the basic digital skills they need to thrive in this modern time.
“I am now very confident that we can attain the training of 1 million Nigerian youth in digital skills now that I have seen that AfDB is planning for 25 million under its Coding for Employment programme.
DY.ng is a component under DEEL, which stands for Digital skills acquisition, Entrepreneurship, Employability and Leadership.
Mr Dare had said he will use DEEL to scale up the number of youth that are trained under the Federal Government programmes especially since the initiative will work to strengthen the thematic areas of the National Youth Policy.
The panel discussions explored how to better understand the practical policy changes required to create Decent Jobs for Youth and improve their entrepreneurial capacities.
Shortly before departing for the conference at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja on Sunday, Mr Dare noted that “the objective is to network at this conference and bring more potential stakeholders on board in a way that eliminates duplications such that the scarce resources allocated to youth development by each one of them will be effectively used to reach more beneficiaries.
“We are continuing to identify more government agencies and international partners that can plug into what we are doing. We will continue to share our vision for the Nigerian youth with them so what we can find areas of collaboration,” he explained.
Mr Dare noted that this year’s conference speaks to the various components of DEEL like the Digital Youth Nigeria (DY.ng) that will equip 500,000 youth with the skill needed to thrive in a digitized world, the Work Experience Programme (WEP) that pair youth with corporation organizations to gain work experience thereby boosting their employability and the entrepreneurship component of the initiative that will provide self-employment skills in addition to seeking funding for youth-owned enterprises.
Business
Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Ismaila Ahmad Abdullahi Ph.D
The public hearings conducted recently by the two Chambers of the National Assembly have elicited positive responses from a broad spectrum of Nigerians, cutting across regional interest groups, government agencies, civil society groups, concerned individuals, the academia, and Labour Unions, among diverse others. Contrary to a few dissensions hitherto expressed in the media, almost all the stakeholders who spoke during the week-long sessions were unanimous in their declaration that the hallowed Chambers should pass the tax reform bills after a clean-up of the grey areas.
The public hearings were auspicious for all Nigerians desirous of economic growth and fiscal responsibility. They were also a watershed moment for the Federal Inland Revenue Service, which had been upbeat about the tax reforms. Indeed, the public hearings had rekindled hope in the tenets of democracy that guarantee freedom of expression and equitable space for cross-fertilisation of ideas. Without gainsaying the fact, the tax reform bills have been unarguably about the most thought-provoking issues in Nigeria today, drawing variegated perspectives and commentaries from even unlikely quarters such as the faith-based leaders, student bodies, and trade unions, which speaks much about the importance of the bills.
In the build-up to the public hearings, not many people believed that the bills would make it to the second reading, much less the public hearings. Even the Northern stakeholders who seemed unlikely to support the passage of the bills have softened their stance and have given valuable suggestions that would enrich the substance of the bills. The Arewa Consultative Forum came to the public hearings well-prepared with a printed booklet that addressed their concerns. It concluded with an advisory that the bills should be “Well planned, properly communicated, strategically implemented and ample dialogue and political consensus allowed for the reforms to be accepted.”
The concerns of ACF ranged from the composition of the proposed Nigeria Revenue Service Board as contained in Part 111, Section 7 of the bill, the unlimited Presidential power to exempt/wave tax payment as proposed in Section 75(1) of the bill, the family income or inheritance tax as contained in Part 1, Section 4(3) of the bill, to the issues around development levy and VAT. On the development levy, the ACF stated that unless the Federal Government is considering budgetary funding for TETFUND, NASENI and NITDA, it does not see the “wisdom behind the plan to replace (them) with NELFUND”.
The position of the North was equally reinforced by the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Northern Elders Forum, Kano State Government, Professor Auwalu Yadudu, and the FCT Imams. Like the ACF, these stakeholders lent their respective voices to the Section on the Inheritance Tax in Part 1 of the bill and the use of the term ‘ecclesiastical’, which, in their views, undermines certain religious rights and beliefs. The Kano State Government, represented by Mahmud Sagagi, affirmed that “we support tax modernisation” but cautioned that “we must ensure that this process does not come at the expense of states’ constitutional rights and economic stability”. Professor Auwalu Yadudu, a constitutional law professor, drew attention to the use of the ‘supremacy clause’ and cautioned that the repeated use of “notwithstanding” in the bills would undermine the supremacy of the Nigerian constitution if passed as such.
Other stakeholders that made contributions at the sessions included the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Nigeria Customs Service, and a host of others. While most of their concerns bordered on technical issues requiring fine-tuning, they were unanimous in their support for the bills. They aligned with the position of the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, Ph.D. and the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, which is that the extant tax laws and fiscal regulations are obsolete necessitating reforms aimed at creating a fair and equitable tax and fiscal space to grow Nigeria’s economy.
In one of the sessions, Dr Zaach Adedeji expounded on the criss-cross of trade activities in the Free Trade Zone whereby companies misuse tax waivers as exporters to sell their goods or services in the Customs Area at an amount usually less than the price the operators in the Customs Area who pay VAT and other taxes sell theirs thereby disrupting business transactions. This way, the operators in the Free Trade Zone shortchange the government in paying their due taxes by circumventing extant regulations, which are inimical to the economy’s growth.
Overall, the presentations were forthright, foresighted, and helpful in elucidating the issues contained in the bills. According to the statistics read out at the end of the hearings at the Senate, 75 stakeholders were invited, 65 made submissions, and 61 made presentations. At the House of Representatives 53 stakeholders made presentations. By all means, this is a fair representation. Given the presentations, it is evident that the National Assembly has gathered enough materials to guide its deliberations on the bills. As we look forward to the passage of the bills, we commend the leadership of the National Assembly for their unwavering commitment to making the bills see the light of the day.
Abdullahi is the Director of the Communications and Liaison Department, FIRS.
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