…as AMAC/DOAS fail to reach agreement
Following the failure to reach an agreement on best practices for seamless tax collection on mobile advertisement within the nation’s capital, fraudsters and touts seem to have cashed in on the cracks within the system to take advantage of hapless businesses owners in the territory.
Often times businesses operating in the city center have had to face issues of multiple taxation, as they have to pay taxes on mobile advert to FCT Department of Outdoor Advertisement and Signage, DOAS, Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC, and even impostors.
Only on Friday, a combined security Joint Task Force of AMAC raided areas around the Wuse market where they arrested 10 impostors posing as task collectors for the area council.
The suspects who were rounded up at a garden directly opposite the market, were said to use the park as hideout for illicit drugs deals and den of fake AMAC task collectors.
The Senior Special Assistant on Community Development to AMAC Chairman and the Coordinator of the AMAC Task Force on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement of Tax Collection, Comrade Yunusa Ahmadu Yusuf, said the suspects were apprehended following efforts of the Task Force in combing black spots housing illegal tax collectors using the name of AMAC and fake receipts to swindle the public in mobile advert revenue generation.
He explained that the suspects, mostly male, had turned the garden directly opposite the popular Wuse market main entrance gate into their haven for criminal activities.
Yusuf vowed that the team, comprising of men of the Nigerian Police, Army, Navy, Air Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NIS, DSS and other sister agencies, would stop at nothing in raiding the entire council of criminal elements threatening revenue generation and the peace of AMAC and its residents.
He disclosed that items recovered from them include fake AMAC jackets with inscriptions of AMAC Task Force on it, fake AMAC receipts, AMAC ID cards, illicit drugs and charms.
According to him, the suspects would be profiled and handed over to appropriate authorities for necessary actions.
In his words, “We have arrested about 10 suspected fraudsters faking AMAC recipients and operational permit, and they have mentioned name of their bosses which includes one Mr. Ebere Nwaokocha, Onyeka Cletus Odama, Reuben Emuraishe Christhian amongst others.
“We are going to take many of them to court, they operate as unauthorised AMAC technical partners. We did not engage any of them to collect revenue on mobile advert in AMAC which is an offence. They want to hide within that garden, some places in area 11, Utako, Jabi and other black spots to wreck havoc on AMAC.
“We will do thorough profiling because we are suspecting that there could be touts from some garages around the FCT and even escapees from the Kuje Correctional Centre.
“We are starting from Wuse axis, and we will expand it to other areas. The exercise will reach all the revenue areas of the council because the council chairman Hon. Christopher Maikalangu, has made it clear that his administration will have zero tolerance on revenue leakages. He has maintained that he will go all out to apprehend perpetrators of illegality in AMAC as it concerns revenue collection.
“We have told them to find where they will go or find another job because they can’t fight an elected government. We have not ask DOAS or any other authorities to help us or collect revenue on behalf of AMAC. We have agreed that if you fight us, we will fight you.
“This operation is one that the security agencies have started since, we are about to start an inclusive operation involving the DSS and the military because this illegality must stop. We voted this government into power and we must use the revenue generated and work for them at the rural communities. We want to clear the city centre of criminals and fraudsters.”
