The Governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, has scrapped the collection of certain taxes and levies from the grassroot citizens in an effort to ameliorate the hardship brought about by the economic recession currently plaguing the country.
Obiano made this known during a special broadcast to the people of the state, saying that he preferred to take action to ease his people’s pains rather than repeat reasons why the country is in its present state.
“I hereby suspend the sale of consolidated emblems in Anambra State. I suspend the collection of Hawkers Permit on all streets in the state. I suspend the collection of Wheelbarrow Tax in all markets in the state. Lastly, I abolish the imposition of unapproved levies on students in public primary and secondary schools in the state. All these pronouncements shall take immediate effect.”
Obiano further said that the abolishing of these taxes was a part of four intervention areas that his government had come up with in order to ensure that the situation in Anambra State is different from that in other states.
“Consequently, our intervention comes in Four Key Areas: Tax Relief Programme, Special Intervention Programmes for Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs and Large Enterprises, Social Intervention Programme for Low Income Households and finally; Intervention in Infrastructure-for-Jobs.” Sun News reports.
It is hoped that governments at all levels emulate this example and find ways of easing the pain of their citizens rather than argue with each other.
Parts of this article originally appeared in Sun Newspaper