A fresh row between the Federal Government and Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government-owned Companies (SSASCGOC) may be brewing over who is responsible for the collection of stamp duties between the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST).
There had been a cold war between the two Federal Government agencies about who is empowered by the law of the land to assess, collect and account for the charge.
But with the signing of the Finance Act recently by President Muhammadu Buhari, the NIPOST was stripped of the responsibility – a development which affects SSASCGOC, an affiliate of TUC.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja during the weekend, National Treasurer of TUC, who was the immediate past President-General of SSASCGOC, Mohammad Yunusa, told newsmen the Federal Government has already been dragged to court on the matter.
He said: ”The problem we have is the one that is connected to the Federal Government directly is about the Finance Act. The Finance Act has given the primary functions of NIPOST which is one of our branches to FIRS and we have challenged the government on this matter even to the court that the Finance Act must be reversed.
”You can’t take the statutory function of NIPOST and give it to another agency in the disguise of the Finance Act, we can’t accept it.
”Is there any organisation by law that is allowed to produce and sell stamps in Nigeria apart from NIPOST? That’s what they are trying to do but it is not acceptable to us.”
Yunusa also stressed that his union would do everything possible in its rights to ensure the moves by the government to privatise the Nigerian Communications Satellites are not achieved.
He argued that the agency would go into extinction immediately after it’s being privatised.
”The Federal Government is trying to interfere in the Nigerian Communications Satellites (NigComSat). Although, to a great extent, we have settled that matter but they have not entirely removed their hands.
”Government is thinking of privatising that organisation with the excuse that they are not generating enough revenue. But we are saying No!
”Once you privatise that organisation, especially with insecurity in Nigeria, all manners of bandits and insurgents will take over that place because the people you’re privatising to, only God knows what they would do with that enterprise after you have privatised it to them.
”To some extent, Government has listened to us, but we can still see some signs that they have not removed their hands entirely,” he added.