Saraki: Tax laws ’ll be examined to improve ease of doing business

The President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, on Tuesday said Senate will work to streamline Nigeria’s multiple taxation system to improve the ease of doing business in the country.

Saraki who spoke at a dialogue at the 22nd Edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, said this while answering questions from the audience, adding that Nigeria’s corporate taxation system needed to be reformed and revamped to get the country out of the economic recession.

“With 37 million small and medium scale enterprises providing about 95 percent of our jobs, as we promote ‘Made in Nigeria’, we must also use our legislative powers to amend the taxation laws,” he said, “To get out of this recession, we must provide a business-friendly environment,” he said

“Earlier this year, when in the Senate we started the ‘Made in Nigeria’ campaign, we knew how important it was, but even we did not foresee how far it would go,” he said.  “To promote the patronage of our domestic businesses, the Senate has gone as far as amending the Public Procurement Act to compel government ministries, departments and agencies to key into this initiative.

“It is our hope that Nigerian businesses can begin to benefit from the over N2 trillion in government expenditure in the 2016 budget,” he continued, “So that we can reduce the demand on foreign exchange while simultaneously creating employment, moving towards self sufficiency, increasing our GDP and boosting our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).”

Saraki also stated that the anti-recession Bills that the Senate has scheduled for passage by December ending include: the Petroleum Industry Bill; the National Development Bank of Nigeria (Establishment) Bill; the Nigerian Ports and Habours Authority Act (Amendment) Bill; the National Road Fund (Establishment) Bill; the National Transport Commission Act of 2001; the Warehouse Receipts Act (Amendment) Bill.