The Association of Livestock Dealers of Nigeria, Oyo State has disclosed payment of N5m taxes on 10,000 goats daily to the coffer of government despite neglect by relevant agencies.
Its President, Hon. Ashirudeen Abd-Rasaq made the disclosure during the Chieftaincy and Award Ceremony organized by the Iseyin local government chapter of the association.
He said the payment of N5m on 10,000 goats sold daily has not translated to anything in terms of benefits to its members.
He disclosed that government is yet to address the reported daily occurrence of livestock theft which is adversely affecting the business of its members.
Abd-Rasaq who decried the situation at a various livestock markets in the state called on the government and relevant agencies to step up their game.
On the sales and purchase of stolen livestock by the suspected youths, the President called on security agencies to beam their searchlights on major cattle markets in the state
According to him, the State government is neglecting them despite its members’ payment of over five million naira taxes daily to the coffer of government.
“We want people to be careful about where they buy their livestock, many of the people that sell livestock at the market are not part of us, in the old, each household of livestock traders was well known in each area, especially for people that wanted to sell or buy goats, this made the work easy and the traders and individual owners that owned the goats had peace of mind about the safety of their animals.
“It is not like today when those that did not learn the trade now engage in its selling in an abnormal way, unfortunately when people’s goats and other animals get lost, owners would rather come to us to look for them, therefore, we want these people to either join us and work legitimately or stay away from the trade and stop tarnishing our image.
“We want the government and security agencies to note this and work towards putting a stop to it, those genuinely engaged in the trade, especially our old women who sell and buy livestock, including birds, are not allowed to do their jobs anymore and we have taken this issue to the State government, they promised to work on it.
“Although we agreed that they should work on that, we have asked our members across the state to stop paying the tax of five hundred naira for each goat because of the neglect we suffer.
“If we can be paying 5million naira daily on over ten thousand goats, do we not deserve the attention of government like all other sectors? Go across the whole of Oyo State, nothing has been done for our members, we also need to feel that we are members of the public upon which government presides and collect tax.”
Reacting to the allegations, the state Commissioner for agriculture and rural development, Hon Adeniyi Adebisi said the Ministry is no longer involved in revenue/tax collection for the government.
He said the present administration has shifted the responsibility of collection of taxes and revenue to the Board of Internal Revenue and ITC Advisory Services who engage the services of accredited Agric to produce Sub- consultants on livestock.
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