The President of the Ugwumba Leadership Centre and the former Chief of Staff to Imo State Government, Chef Uche Nwosu, has supported the decision of President Bola Tinubu to suspend cyber security levy adding that it is too early for Nigeria’s economy to implement such a policy.
Nwosu in a telephone interview with journalists in Abuja, also said the policy should not be discarded totally but should be implemented for multinational companies.
He said: “I am not in support of the cyber security levy. It is not what one can just wake up and implement looking at the present economic president Bola Tinubu inherited” he stressed.
“We are still a third-world country, we have not grown to a first-world country, where these things can be implemented without anybody raising their eyebrows on it.
“So if the UK, Germany or China is doing it, it does not mean we can do it now. We are not yet mature for it. Let’s hold on and grow. Let’s come up to a second-world economy before we can even start talking about that.
“If at all they want to review the policy, I would advise Mr. President not to allow them put it on small-scale industries or companies, they can levy it on bigger industries.
“We have many multinational industries; companies like MTN, DSTV, all those ones can be taxed, not one mama somewhere who just opened a shop to sell groundnuts.
“It should be specifically for multinationals and small companies should be exempted if at all it needs to be reviewed and implemented”.
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He further called for proper orientation of Nigerians on the importance of the policy before it can be implemented.
“I think it calls for proper orientation of the masses on the importance of the policy before it can be implemented. So, I am in support of the president discarding it”
“The only importance of this policy is that it will increase our revenue. It should be levied on big companies not the small businesses, We are still a growing economy, we have not reached the level of this kind of policy” he added.
“I am not saying it should be discarded totally but the poor should be excluded until we come out of this present economic situation the president inherited”
When asked if Nigeria is being overtaxed presently, he said Nigeria is one of the country’s been under-taxed considering what is happening in other countries.
“We are not overtaxed, the president is just trying to increase our revenue.” Nwosu emphasized.
Speaking on the Rivers State crisis, Nwosu who said neither the Minister of FCT or the governor is responsible but appealed with the president to revisit the issue again added that the crisis is affecting the economy of the state which would extend to the country at large.
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