The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has threatened to shut down telecommunications facilities in Kogi State following disputes arising from alleged excessive taxation and levies by the Kogi State Internal Revenue Service (KIRS).
A statement issued by both the group’s Chairman, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, and Head, Operations, Gbolahan Awonuga, warned that the disputes would likely to lead to a total communications blackout in the state and parts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja.
The association listed some other states whose telecom services may be partly disrupted if the facilities were shut down as including Nasarawa, Benue, Enugu, Anambra, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara, and Niger States as they all share borders with Kogi State.
According to the association, the planned shutdown of the facilities could be effected because many critical telecommunications sites, belonging to its members, had been closed and sealed up by the state government in an attempt to increase its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) collection.
It stated: “This action followed an ex-parte court order obtained by the KIRS over unsubstantiated allegations that our members are in default of tax payments to the state government (which is not the truth) and access to these critical telecom sites has been denied.
“As result of these actions by the state government, our members are unable to refuel power generators in these sites, a situation which has led to outage of over 70 sites including hub sites across parts of Kogi State. Now, with likely impact on Nine States surrounding Kogi (namely: Nasarawa, Benue, Enugu, Anambra, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara, Niger States. These are States sharing borders with Kogi State), and Abuja the FCT inclusive”, it added.
The group claimed that its members had paid all statutory levies and taxes, namely annual Right of Way (ROW) renewal, social services contribution and employee economic development levy, among others due to the state government and also had taken necessary steps to comply with local laws that govern business activities within the state.
The association also listed other levies as including those being administered by the state environmental protection board are payment of environmental levy, failure to submit an environmental impact assessment report, and failure to register industry.
It also expressed its concern that the action by KIRS had the potential of jeopardizing communication services provided by its members to security agencies such as the Nigeria Police Force, the Armed Forces in addition and to other emergency and social services in Kogi and other neighboring states.
The ALTON also pointed out that it would also affect communication links to Bank Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) across those states.
It stated: “The outage currently being experienced is already affecting the ability of our members to provide uninterrupted service delivery to Commercial Banks, Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and other critical agencies of government in the aforementioned locations.
“It is pertinent to note that the office of the National Security Adviser to Mr. President has in the past communicated to the 36 state governments on the fact that telecommunications sites are Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). They are critical socio-economic and security infrastructure. The agency had strongly advised against sealing them as such actions would have negative implications on national security.
“State Governments were encouraged to explore other means of resolving tax related disputes rather than sealing telecommunications sites. It is therefore worrisome that the KIRS continue to ignore such advice.
“Our members have also made several overtures to Kogi State Internal Revenue Service KIRS in the past months in a bid to resolve the disputed issues amicably but the agency has remained adamant.
“Rather than resort to the Tax Arbitration Tribunal for intervention as is expected of a government agency, KIRS has resorted to subtle intimidation by getting the sites shutdown in a bid to coerce our members into accepting the illegal taxes and levies” it added.
