Lagos Governor Sanwo-Olu signing the VAT Bill into law, Friday
Sanwo-Olu assents to VAT bill, 24hrs after passage by Lagos Assembly
Barely 24 hours after the state House of Assembly had passed the State VAT Bill, Lagos Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Friday, assented to the bill seeking to regulate collection of the value added tax.
The State Assembly had at its plenary on Thursday passed the VAT Bill into law after its third reading on the floor of the House, having been considered by the Committee on Finance as directed by the Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, earlier Monday.
The VAT Bill and the anti-open grazing bill had both been cleared for passage and forwarded to the State Lagos Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, who confirmed the signing of the VAT act into law, said Gpvernor Sanwo-Olu signed the bill into law, Friday morning.
“The Governor signed the “bill for a law to impose and charge VAT on certain goods and services” at about 11. 45am today, after returning from an official trip to Abuja.
“By this act, the Bill has now become a Law,” said the commissioner.
It would be recalled that Lagos Assembly, Thursday, passed the state’s Value Added Tax (VAT) bill, as well as, the one prohibiting open grazing of livestock in the state, after both bills had scaled their second reading, earlier Monday.
The House had on Monday committed both bills to separate committees for consideration after their second reading.
The anti-open grazing bill known as ‘A bill for a law to Prohibit Open Cattle Grazing In Lagos State, the Trespass of Cattle Land And For Other Connected Purposes,’ was committed to the House Committee on Agriculture, while the value added tax bill, known as the ‘VAT Bill’ which also scaled its second reading during, same Monday Plenary, was committed to the Committee on Finance with the mandate to report back on Thursday.
During Thursday’s plenary, House Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, directed the acting Clerk, Olalekan Onafeko, to transmit a clean copy to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for assent.
The two bills were passed after unanimous votes by the lawmakers at the sitting where they were read the third time.
On the VAT Bill, Speaker Obasa has noted last Monday that the proposed law would lead to ‘increase in revenue and increase in infrastructural development which is in line with fiscal federalism that we have been talking about.’
Obasa maintained that the VAT law when passed, would help the state meet challenges in its various sectors, while urging the state government to do everything legally possible to ensure the judgement of a Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, is sustained even up to the Supreme Court.
He lamented a situation where about N500 billion is being generated from Lagos State, while N300 billion is being generated from other southwest states and paltry amounts were disbursed to them in return.
When passed, Lagos will join Rivers as states in the federation with laws for collection and enforcement of the tax, which has been done by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
“It is an opportunity for us to emphasise again on the need for the consideration of true federalism,” Obasa stressed.
