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MORE than thirteen years after the Stamp Duty Act of 2004 was enacted, its implementation has become needful. In fact, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in January 2016, ordered the banks to start deducting N50 stamp duties on deposits into current accounts with value of N1,000 and above, as part of efforts to boost government’s revenue.

A year later last month, a proposal went before the National Assembly for the increase in the cost of stamp duties across board, and the Post Master General of the Federation, Mr. Adebisi Adegbuyi, recently confirmed that indeed, an increase is in the offing.

Most Nigerians are not properly schooled in civic economics. That explains why they easily fall prey to activists, political opposition propagandists and social critics who claim to speak in their interest, especially when adjustments to tariffs, taxes and duties are announced by government. Yet, there is no leading economy in the world where periodic reviews of taxes, levies and charges are not carried out. A major reason for this is inflation, which inherently, devalues every currency without any official announcement.

The existing stamp duty regime has been in existence for too long. The Stamp Duty Act of 2004, which tied the rate of stamp duty to the cost of postage, was supposed to become effective in January 2016. But only the CBN has responded to it. The price of postage has remained at 50 kobo since the Obasanjo administration. Yet, the Nigerian Postal Service (NPS) estimates that it costs a whole lot more to process and deliver a letter in an envelope.

It should be obvious to any fair-minded person that with the jump of the pump price of fuel from N30 per litre in 2004 to N145 per litre today, NIPOST can no longer deliver its services without adjustments to its charges. Furthermore, the Minimum Wage had been adjusted twice since 2004 from N5,000 to N18,000 per month. Other charges have gone up: vehicles and parts now cost more; repairs and maintenance of equipment and generators have gone through the roof.

Nigerians should, however, demand accountability from government to ascertain how much is realised from direct and indirect taxations from them. Government has a duty to provide information as to the need to collect statutory revenues from all law-abiding citizens, as well as how they are spent. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The government and the citizenry should brace up for a global best practice system of generating revenues from the citizenry and using same to provide services that will make life more abundant, especially as the era of free oil money is effectively over.

Not only that, NIPOST must make the words of its Post Master General, Adegbuyi count, by providing more efficient services to justify any increases.

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