The Nation Newspaper

Tag: introduce

  • Ayade won’t introduce new taxes in Cross River

    Ayade won’t introduce new taxes in Cross River

    Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade has said his administration will not impose new taxes on the people.

    Instead, the governor pledged, it would harness the state’s natural resources to better the lot of the people.

    He said his administration’s core role is to protect the governed.

    Ayade spoke at the weekend in Calabar, the state capital, after listening to a presentation by a consulting firm and a bank on how to increase the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) with the introduction of new tax heads.

    The governor, who regretted that the model the investors presented, which had worked in Lagos and Ogun states to boost their IGR, would rather add to the hardship among Cross River residents.

    He said: “I want you to sympathise with the state of Cross River. We are a state whose corporate philosophy is bringing government to the people that need it the most. We are a people who believe in the Afro-centric theory of providing a shoulder for your tired brother to lean on.

    “If we deepen this theory, it might come to a point when there is a Kantian impression that tends to equate government and the economy in such a way that the government’s core role in Cross River State is to protect the governed. There is no developmental effort, no deliberate effort of raising IGR that will be premised on taxing your people to prosperity. As a government that has a corporate conscience, at any point you put a tax, you should ask yourself what you are giving to the people in return.”

    Ayade added: “When I do the Home Certification Process at a cost to a man who is a civil servant, I will be putting an extra burden on a shoulder, which is tired, with a deliberate struggle to see how I can get money and raise my IGR. I might celebrate the N11 billion in three months, but I have put one of my citizens out there in a bigger pain.

    “I don’t believe in taxing people to raise money; I believe in tasking my brain to raise money. The kind of programme you will bring to me that will excite me is the kind that will take advantage of our natural resources and convert them to wealth.”

  • Govt to introduce uniform charges, rates at port

    Govt to introduce uniform charges, rates at port

    The Federal Government is set to provide a platform that would usher in the regime of uniform charges and rates for operations and activities at ports to promote business.

    Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting organised by the Shippers Council in Lagos yesterday, its governing board chairman, General Saliu Ibrahim (retd), said the Federal Government has appointed the Council as a tentative economic regulator of the port industry pending the passage of the Port and Habour and the National Transport Commission bills by the National Assembly.

    He urged stakeholders in the maritime industry to join hands with the council for effective implementation of its role as economic regulator to make the ports attractive for business.

    Ibrahim said the role of a commercial regulator was given to the agency to sanitise the ports by standardising its operation with defined rules and regulations to guide the day-to-day activities at the ports.

    In his remark, the Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar who was represented by his Permanent Secretary, Mr Nebolisa Emodi assured the stakeholders of government’s determination to promote the maritime industry by ensuring the quick passage of all the bills relating to the sector.

    Former Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mr Omar Suleiman urged the government to consider economic viability before spending tax payers’ money on the development of deep sea ports in any part of the country.

    Availability of cargo, the former NPA boos said, must be a sine qua non for a new port to be developed.

    The Chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) Princess Vicky Haastrup said the country lost about 600,000 metric tonnes of rice between January and March 2014 to the neighbouring ports in Benin Republic, Cameroon, Accra and Togo due to 110 per cent tariff slammed on the commodity by the Federal Government last year.

  • Dolphins introduce DolphinsFCTV on Youtube

    Dolphins introduce DolphinsFCTV on Youtube

    Three-time Nigerian League champions, Dolphins FC have introduced DolphinsFCTV, a YouTube channel.

    Media Officer of the club, China Acheru said on Wednesday that it was in a bid to get fans of the club worldwide to see visuals of what happens within the club on daily basis.

    “Once again we have another first as regards what we have done in getting the club closer to the people,” Acheru said.

    “Remember, we were the first Nigerian top division club to get a Face book fan page, the first to get a twitter account and now this. We know other clubs will copy us now but it doesn’t matter because we have once again shown that we indeed lead the way in these things.”

    According to the media officer, you can access their youtube channel by typing on your browser, www.youtube.com/dolphinsfctv and you can watch exclusive videos on your laptop, tablets and smart phones.

    “Right now we are bringing to you just post match interviews but soon you will be getting exclusive footage from within the club as well as clips of matches played and great goals scored by the club.”

    In 1998, Dolphins, then called Eagle Cement became the first Nigerian club to qualify for the group stage of the CAF Champions League; in 2005, Dolphins also became the first Nigerian club to reach the final of the CAF Confederation Cup.

  • LASAA to introduce Skype Video

    After four-week trials involving its Human Resources, Client Services and Business Development Departments, the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA) will introduce Skype video-conferencing to promote customer relations and service delivery.

    Skype was founded in 2003 by Janus Friis from Denmark and Niklas Zennström from Sweden, but was acquired by Microsoft Corporation in 2011. Registered users of Skype are identified by a unique Skype name, and may be listed in the Skype directory. Skype allows registered users to communicate through both instant messaging and voice chat. Voice chat allows telephone calls between pairs of users and conference callers, and uses a proprietary audio codec. Skype’s text chat client allows group chats, emoticons, storing chat history and editing of previous messages. Video conferencing between two users was introduced in January 2006 for the Windows and Mac OS X platform clients.

    LASAA said the application would, among others, ensure that response time to enquiries from stakeholders is quicker thereby making, service delivery more effective and efficient. The deployment of the Skype application will begin next Tuesday. It is the first time, in the words of the agency, that such an interactive platform is deployed by any regulator in the industry in Africa.

    Skype allows users to communicate with individuals by voice, video, and instant messaging on the Internet. The service has almost 700 million registered users in the world.

    In a statement, the agency said over one million people use the service mainly for personal communication in country. It said it would adopt Skype as part of efforts to improve its publics.

    LASAA’s Managing Director Mr George Noah said the video application demonstrates the agency’s commitment to the provision of value-added services.

    “We are most delighted at the launch of this service because it aligns with our commitment to continuously offer our stakeholders opportunity to connect with us freely. We are convinced that with Skype, engagement at both ends will be quicker and faster,” he said.