Chairman of Presidential Tax and Fiscal Policy Reform, Taiwo Oyedele, says area boys can be trained for tax collection and paid decent salaries to forsake their old ways. He also speaks on efforts made to reduce multiple taxes he describes as a nuisance at the state and local government levels.
Speaking in a recent interview on Channels Television, Oyedele said his team is planning to involve all stakeholders in implementation — including touts popularly called “Area Boys”.
We’re also thinking about how you bring all stakeholders on board because at the end of the day, if you stop the livelihood of anyone, whether they are earning it legitimately or not, you can create crises that would be difficult to manage but once you bring everybody in, maybe we need to train those area boys and touts, give them uniforms and then they’ll be the ones to ask you to show the evidence on your phone, right? And then they get paid a decent salary. And if you give them the skills, some of them will on their own, move on from that job to something else, right? So, our strategy is let’s think about what’s best for our country and get all stakeholders to align. We do think that all the stakeholders including the government want the best for their country and we just need to make them see that big picture and then come along with us. That’s the plan that we have.
