GOVERNOR BEN AYADE WEEPS OVER TAXATION (VIDEO)
Cross River Governor, Benedict Ayade got emotional and burst into tears over taxation and inaugurated an Anti-Tax Agency comprising "men and women of God" tasked with the responsibility to ensure low-income earners are exempted from tax in the state.
Governor Ayade first abolished tax for low-income earners in 2017. The Governor, however, lamented that the people he gave political appointments to do something else entirely always came back to extort the low-income earners illegally.
According to the Governor, those exempted from tax include hotels that have less than 50 rooms in Calabar, Okada drivers, taxi drivers, and airport taxi drivers.
Also included are owners of small catering and restaurants like mama put eatery points as well as "those small small survival people, selling of produce, struggling to heck a living, they have been exempted today from paying tax," the Governor said.
"We have exempted them because it is better for me as a governor that I would rather task my brain than to tax my people".
Produce tax has also been abolished in the state.
"I have abolished produce tax. Let farmers earn their money, let them keep their money. Because you didn't give them fertilizer, you did not irrigate the soil, you did not prepare the soil for them, you did not do the land clearing for them, why do you want to tax them? Why do you put much pressure on that your small brother or sister whose situation is much worse?"
In an emotional outburst, Governor Ayade termed it as the "greatest injustice" for government to tax poor people who do not have scholarship for their kids yet struggle to pay school fees, and other basic amenities and the "government is providing almost nothing."
READ MORE: AYADE LIFTS BAN ON WORSHIP CENTRES IN CROSS RIVER
Speaking during the inauguration, Governor Ayade said he picked only men and women of God to serve in the agency. Their phone numbers and contacts would henceforth become accessible to the public so residents in Cross Rivers can call them to confirm if their businesses ought to pay tax.
"We implore you to know that your responsibility going forward is to put an end to illegal taxes on people," Governor Ayade charged them.
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