Telecom Subscribers in Nigeria rejects IMF advice to charge VAT on Telecommunications Service to Raise Nigeria's Revenue

The only leading and No1 Telecom Subscriber advocacy body called Association of Telephones, Cable Tv and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria, (ATCISNigeria) with over 185 million membership across 36 states within the six geo political zones in Nigeria have rejected and condenm the advice by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) asking the Nigerian government to introduce excise duties on telecommunications services and extend value-added tax (VAT) to fuel products, saying the sector is already overtaxed.

speaking with the journalists yesterday at Abuja on the matter, the National President of Association of Telephones Cable Tv and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria (ATCISNigeria) ‘Sina Bilesanmi said It must be understood by international bodies that Nigeria is a sovereign nation with its peculiarity. Our nation has been saddled with escalating taxes and untoward economic downturns.

The IMF are selfish and lacked a proper understanding of what is currently going on in the sector, saying the sector currently faces over 40 different types of taxes.

‘Sina Bilesanmi said the body had earlier rejected a planned five per cent excise duties on telecommunications services, The excise tax on telecommunications was introduced in 2022 under the regime of former President Muhammadu Buhari to raise more non-oil revenue for the government. It covered both voice and data services, with operators directed to remit on or before the 21st of every month.

ATCISNigeria agitation and advocate the Federal Government under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu had announced it had scrapped the five per cent excise duty earlier imposed on telecommunications services to ease cost pressures for millions of Nigerian telecom subscribers

The telecom subscriber advocacy body, like ATCISNigeria, said that the burden of more taxes on the sector will be passed down to subscribers, which could further widen the digital growth gap in the country by leaving telecom services in the hands of only the rich.

IMF’s advice to the Nigerian government was targeted at raising revenues and not tackling Nigeria’s social challenges. “The IMF has been coming to Nigeria for the past 40 years, and every time they make us implement any policy, all it does is to deepen us into further poverty. So we need to stop listening because our fundamentals are different.

“They are too focused on raising revenues, not necessarily about reducing wastage, but they don’t understand that our accountability mechanisms are not strong enough to support all the revenue generation, which has not translated to a reduction in the multidimensional poverty index.

“So if they’re saying tax should be a tool for inclusion, that makes sense. But if it’s for revenue generation, it doesn’t really add much to the economy.

“As you can see, since this government came to power, they have been implementing almost all the recommendations of the IMF.

“And you can see that our poverty has deepened, and the essence of governance is to reduce poverty,” he said.

The recommendation is likely to reopen debate over the cost of living in Nigeria as extending VAT to fuel products could push up the prices of petrol and diesel, while telecom excise duties may raise the cost of airtime, voice calls and internet subscriptions if operators pass the costs to subscribers.

We as telecom subscriber advocacy bodies called (ATCISNigeria) are totally against the proposed prompting of Nigeria by IMF to introduce more tariffs on the telecoms sector.

We must remember the excruciating tariff increments on Telco services recently. These increments of Telco services fell far short of good customer experience because of poor Quality of Service QoS

We hereby implore the federal government of Nigeria to stay away from the IMF advice in this regard. we must avoid further heating up of the economy for already impoverished Nigerians.