In that passionate but quality speech delivered by the governor, he prohibited the activities of private revenue collector in the state (usually called Agberos) that their activities were not backed constitutionally
What some Edo citizens might not know is that prior to that day, there has been lot of increased thuggery activities and rascality perpetrated by this so called agberos, among which were increased taxes fees of motorist by inducing unknown levies, Not remitting to the various institution that contracted them.
These and many more were some of the activities that became rampant immediately when the governor took oat of office.
The governor had to do something, when all option to curtail the excess of these individuals proves not to be successful, the governor had to arrest Mr Eriyo Osakpanwan AKA Mr Nomoreless
The arrest of Mr Nomoreless whom is regarded as one of the untouchables in the little Agbero kingdom sparked fear in their midst and showed the seriousness of governor Obaseki to check if necessary stop their activities.
But what has cause fear in the heart of many Edo citizen is the slogan that "Each Governor Comes With His Own Agbero". This slogan is now the acceptable norms that the Edo people has to live with because of the idea that revenue/taxes cannot be collected without the services of this so called Agberos.
So with the abolishment of the activities of private revenue collector by the present Godwin Obaseki Administration, many are scared that this should not be another tactics to change or recycle the individuals collecting tax. We are scare that it should not just be recycling of the process, a situation whereby the Governor empower new set of Agberos . Or recontracting new set of private revenue collector.
Our hope is that, the governor being a technocrat that we envisage him to be will carry out an overhauling of the whole system and device a technical way were government can collect revenue with the services of this Private Revenue Collector
With the few knowledge that I have, I will be suggesting my own micro way of how I think revenue should be collected in the state. My idea would not be perfect has it comes with his own challenges, afterall it is just an idea, but ideas can be improved upon.
MY OPINION
Within 3month of the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) by the federal Government, President Buhari address the nation that #2.2trn was realized by the government. This itself shows how successful the TSA idea was, and such system of revenue collection should be adopted by states government
With such success of the TSA, one would wonder why that system is not introduce at the state and local government level, a system whereby tax payer or motorist in this case are coerced to visit banks or any assigned financial organization and pay their taxes and are identified with a unique code and receipt which will empower such motorist with the right to work for a stipulate period of time. the least period of time motorish should be allowed to pay for should be 2weeks. because of the time that would be spent paying such amount and the dishonesty of motorist to pay such amount daily.
A kind of state task force should be inaugurated to check and authenticate the receipts and admnistered code given to fulfilling motorist, and the task force will police to airing motorist that would want to outsmart the system by not paying but working
This system of revenue collection will bring to an end the era where revenue is paid to individuals pocket before it will be remitted to the government, which leaves the government on the mercies of the private individual collector. But the system also comes with its own challenges, such as How can Market Women and hawkers queue up in banks or any authorize reputable institution to pay tax? with consistency and public sensitization, this would not be an issue
And
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