Dare Babalola
Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, has clarified that his comments on the tax regulation were misrepresented.
Oyedele made the clarification on Wednesday while speaking on Arise Television, following claims that key provisions of the tax law had been altered.
He explained that he wasn’t saying the regulation itself was fake, but rather addressing discrepancies between the law as published in the Gazette and a harmonized version attributed to the National Assembly.
He explained that during a media interview, a reporter had drawn his attention to differences between sections of the law as published in the official Gazette and a harmonised version attributed to the National Assembly, asking whether the discrepancies amounted to alterations.
According to Oyedele, prior to that interview he had come across reports alleging that several sections of the law were substantially altered, with the impression given that the claims originated from a House of Representatives committee investigating the matter.
However, he said he became suspicious after noticing that one of the cited sections did not exist in the Gazette. He disclosed that he contacted a lawmaker said to be on the investigating committee, who told him that the committee had not even met.
He said, “So first thing is in your opening comments. And I’ve seen that quite a bit in the past couple of days, that I said that the regulation in circulation is fake. So that’s not what I said, what I said, because I was also granting an interview, and the reporter displayed a section of the law in the Gazette and then the similar session in quotes in the harmonized version by the National Assembly, and was asking me whether that was indeed an alteration.
“Before then, I’d seen this report about all these sections that they claim were altered substantially, and the report was giving the impression that this was a report of the House of Representative committee investigating the matter.
“So I saw one of the sections which I’m going to show you now, and I knew that was not in the Gazette, and they claim it was in the case there, so I called one of the lawmakers in the committee, and I said, just to clarify to you, you know, this your report, you reference something that does not exist. And the guy said they haven’t even met.
“So apparently, some people decided to write what alterations they thought were made, and it didn’t come from the committee investigating it. Some people have done graphic design on top of it. So my response was, I don’t think that it would be productive to start discussing alleged alterations that we don’t know where it came from, and certainly not from the House committee. So and then some people reported it as me saying that the Gazette in circulation was fake. That’s not what I said.”
