Proposed tax reform bills require consequential constitution amendment — Kalu

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu on Thursday disclosed that the proposed tax reform bills require a consequential constitutional amendment.

This is coming barely 3 hours after the closed-door meeting held on the floor of the House which lasted for 2 hours 17 minutes, after which the lawmakers resolved to continue consultation till next week Tuesday for adequate briefing on the proposed tax reform bills from relevant Stakeholders.

Speaking further on the House position on the contentious tax reform bills, Hon. Kalu who presided over the Special Ad-hoc Committee on Constitution amendment meeting, affirmed that there are certain clauses in the proposed tax reform bills that require consequential amendment of the 1999 Constitution.

He said: “Let me also say that the upcoming issue is tax reform bills. You know we are about amending tax bills.

“There will be consequential amendments to the constitution.

“If you amend the tax bills, definitely the constitution cannot remain the way it is.

“It has to reflect those bills that we are amending.

“I’m hoping that the House, had some deliberations today, we are continuing on Tuesday and on Tuesday by the grave of God we will pass it through the Second Reading hopefully.

“And once we do that and progress, we will get the tax bills passed, it’s going to have consequential amendments on the constitution.

“So, we are going to be looking at section 12 which is implementation of Treaties, it’s going to have an impact there.

“We are going to look at section 65, section 135 and section 177 that have to do with qualifications for elections.

“We are going to be looking at section 18 and section 121 which have to do with authorisation of fiscal expenditure from consolidated revenue fund.

“We are going to be looking at section 147 which ha stop do with Ministers of the Federal Government.

“We are going to look at section 162 which has to do with distributable pool account.

“We are going to look at section 163, by virtue of this amendment, section 163 has to do with allocation of other revenues.

“We are going to look at section 175 which has to do with presidential pardon.

“We will look at section 251 which has to do with the jurisdiction of revenue called and the DNT.

“We also going to look at the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Allocation Commission, Third Schedule Part 1N of that particular revenue mobilisation.

“So, there is therefore the need for this Committee to invite Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform to appear before the Committee and make a detailed presentation.

“I’m sure you have seen him speaking about the tax bills and we are hoping that we are going to create a session where we are going to sit down with him to clarify the impacts of these tax bills on the Constitution so that we know the right direction to go.”

The Deputy Speaker also disclosed the Special Ad-hoc Committee’s plans to meet with Political Parties, stressing that the ongoing constitution review is not partisan.

“We are not going to take only the option of APC, or only PDP or SDP, or APGA or Labour or any of them.

“So, we are going to bring the leaders of all political parties into a room to present what we are doing and get their opinions on what they want us to do, to make sure that everybody is carried along.

“The Constitution does not discriminate against any political parties, it’s a good forum for everybody to have their inputs captured. So, we will set the agenda and I’m sure we are going to let you know,” Kalu assured.

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