Former Chief of Staff to the Imo State governor and President, Ugwumba Leadership Center, Chief Uche Nwosu, has said that the introduction of the cybersecurity levy was ill-timed and lacked awareness.
Recall that in a circular issued on May 6, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, directed 0.5 percent ‘Cybersecurity Levy’ deductions on electronic transfers.
But on Tuesday, President Bola Tinubu officially suspended the controversial 0.5% cybersecurity levy after deliberations by members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Nwosu hailed Tinubu’s call, saying that the levy would have laid an extra burden on the masses.
Nwosu in a telephone conversation with newsmen said, “For the cybersecurity levy, I was never in support of it. It came when we are going through a lot as a country for now. The matter is not something the National Assembly or anybody can wake up to introduce into the system.
“Are you telling me that a woman who is selling groundnut in a rural area and has a small account in a bank, after selling N10,000 as profit, some certain amount of money will be withdrawn from her account. What does she know about cybersecurity?
“What concerns her with cybercrime? There was not enough awareness. The National Orientation Agency, the institution that’s in charge of things like this, did not create enough awareness to let people know the disadvantage and advantage of what we are going into. I totally support Mr President for suspending it.
“And I would suggest that next time when such things come to Mr President, he should throw it to the public and see the public’s perception on it. Not them making Mr President to agree to some of these policies.
“The policy on cybersecurity levy is not good at all, which I did not support and I’m very happy that Mr President discarded it for now.”
Who should be levied
According to Nwosu, small businesses and the masses should be left out of the levy. But should the policy be reviewed and implemented, Nwosu advised that the tax should be levied on bigger industries.
According to him, “I think this cybersecurity levy should be levied on major companies that they know that either one way or the other, money laundering is involved.
“The policy shouldn’t be for the poor people. They can tax multinational organisations, but you can’t tax poor people.
“The small scale industries cannot be taxed on this cybersecurity levy. For me, it is not all about the benefit, it’s all about how do we curtail the disadvantage of this on our growing economy.
“We are still a third world country, we have not grown to a first world country, where these things can be implemented without anybody raising their eyebrows on it.
