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| Mac Atasie |
A revenue collecting agent for Abia State Government, Azubuike Ihuoma Erondu has alleged that those parading as experts and consultants to Abia' s Internal Generated Revenue, IGR efforts are actually the leakages and drainpipes to the governments IGR efforts.
Erondu in an interaction with journalists in Umuahia alleged that Mac Atasie, an Economic Consultant to Abia State Government is one of those who are drainpipes on Abia's IGR while claiming to be improving same.
"The same N16 billion, (less LGA revenue) IGR Abia generated in 2016 is what it is still generating today, there is no improvement according to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics records", Erondu said, and further alleged that revenue collected are not paid into Abia Board of Internal Revenue Accounts, ABIR, but is paid into an agents account.
Erondu who expressed bitterness over the development alleged that from property rate alone, Abia is projected to be generating over N100 billion. He also decried a situation where a particular revenue consultant is all over the place from motor parks, LGA, markets, everywhere collecting revenue and yet there is nothing to show for it.
Erondu further accused Atasie of using the police to harass him and prevent him from executing a contract he has already paid for. He explained that he paid N13 million for a revenue window from the Abia State Passengers Integrated Manifest and Safety Scheme, ASPIMSS. But when he attempted to begin executing the job, he found out that it has been sold to another agent. He thereafter approached the court, where an agreement was fashioned for him to do the job in 2022.
Erondu further added that in 2022, Mac Atasie called him to forfeit the ASPIMSS job, which he rejeçted, but Atasie persisted, and attempted to quash an earlier court judgment in my favour, but failed.
"All I am asking for now is to be allowed to do a job I have already paid for, I have spent a lot of money printing materials to execute the job", Erondu lamented
He further urged Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to take a closer look at ABIR as the board is not living up to expectations even with so called experts collecting scandalous fees and payments for services rendered, but which do not reflect in the income of the board.
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5 Comments
Mr Azubuike Erondu won't tell the world how he pays 16m for a 1billion revenue head, he won't tell the world how he scammed the state government billions of naira, he sold fake ticket. It is unfortunate he insists Mac is his problem and not his penchant to hurt the people. This is about him and the state and not Mac and him. Mac cannot do anything to help or hurt him. He simply is using his crooked lifestyle and it is not working this time. He needs to step back and find a lasting solution to his issues. Stop mentioning Mac except u know he is in charge of the law u are breaking. Transporters from all over Nigeria are resolute in making sure u don't hurt them again
ReplyDeleteMr Azubuike should go and look for where he kept his cloths and collect them.
ReplyDeleteYou can’t be paying Government 13 million in a year, while you make 1 billion is never acceptably anywhere in the world
In 2022, Abia IGR has grown from 1.5bn to 2bn monthly and with the directive of the Governor through the Revenue Committee Chairman, Mac is working hard to ensure that we generate 3bn per month yet you are shamelessly dancing naked, you have tried every means to distract Mac Atasie, you bully him online, you don't have any business with Mac, go and face the state government.
ReplyDeleteThe Management of Abia State Internal Revenue Service has deemed it necessary to issue a statement with respect to the ongoing malignment of the State’s consultant with respect to his job on IGR improvement in Abia State.
ReplyDeleteMr. Mac Atasie’s mandate on IGR was a directive of the Governor and it commenced effectively in the 4th Quarter of 2020 following the devastating effect of the covid pandemic on the State’s IGR.
Some of the impacts of his efforts and strategies so far on the mandate:
• the Transport sector reform: where the e-ticketing technology (an epochal innovation) achieved collections growth in flying revenue from 72m as of 2020 to almost 1billion in 2021.
• the USSD self-service technology (*8014*99#) -a first in Nigeria, moved collections from the markets in Abia State from 36million as of 2020 to 250m in 2021 and was majorly from markets in Aba. We urge readers to dial the above USSD code to see.
• The introduction of the pay small small model for payment of taxes and levies to enable Ndi Abia pay their taxes conveniently.
° the introduction of the Demand Notice Management Application, which has enabled the distribution of over 150,000 demand notices across Abia State and has helped guide the enforcement of same.
• Seeing the desired results achieved in the transport and market sectors, the ABIRS management along with his team have also commenced efforts to expand these strategies to other verticals in the State.
Suffice to say that the main sectors where Mr. Mac Atasie really superintended in the last 24 months have positively impacted heavily on the State’s IGR.
Abia State IGR moved from 11.8b in 2015, 12.5b in 2016, 15.46b in 2017, 15.83b in 2018, 15.49b in 2019, 15.92b in 2020 and now to over 18b in 2021. In the computation of the IGR lead tables in Nigeria, various components make up the final IGR figures of any State, including LGAs revenues, Institutions such as Universities, Hospitals e.t.c. In Abia, the LGAs and institutions are yet to key into the harmonized revenue collection model as enshrined in the State's Tax Codification and Consolidation Law of 2020. Their revenue collection record still reads zero in the overall IGR report, except for AbiaPLUC and Signage. These are some of the issues we are working assiduously with other key stakeholders in the State to resolve.
The Abia State Government vis-a-vis the ABiRS uses standard approved percentage-based models to pay her consultants and agents, hence consultants or agents are never paid fixed amounts, and agents’ payments are mostly target based. It is therefore preposterous to assert that Mac Atasie gets paid 37 million naira monthly or that he was paid 800 million naira in 2020 (the year of the Covid-19 pandemic) or in 2021. Besides, the SelfServe platform upon which the e-ticketing technology is based channels Government’s revenues from the sectors they are applied directly to the designated State IGR account daily. Government revenues are never sent to any individuals' accounts.
It is unfortunate that the detractors who have been publishing false numbers about the State’s IGR are people who only look out for and see evil reports for their personal interests rather than for the good of Ndi Abia.
These detractors will never publicize;
That Abia State’s IGR actually grew in the last one year by at least 20%. Adjustment letters had been sent to appropriate authorities to effect the necessary changes.
FACTS OF ISSUE WITH MR AZUBUIKE ERONDU A.K.A MOPOL (Zubics Global Ventures)
ReplyDelete1. MOPOL had a deal with ASPIMMS in 2019 by buying 3 revenue heads that could bring at least 1 billion naira to the State (if harnessed with our current tools), which went sour. He clashed with Eugene who also paid for and was collecting the same revenue windows
2. According to ASPIMMS, MOPOL has only 2 revenue heads - ASPIMMS EMBLEM and YEARLY SAFETY ASSESSMENT, however the State’s law and indeed the Joint Tax Board (JTB) do not recognize any other emblem except for the State’s consolidated emblem under the State's IRS.
3. In obeying the Federal and State laws, ABIRS is the only authority to collect ALL revenues in Abia State, hence, ASPIMS had no authorization to award revenues or appoint agents.
4. Against all odds/advice, Mr. Mac Atasie pleaded to have the collections go the legally permitted way while MOPOL serves as the authorized ABIRS agent for the legally recognized Consolidated Emblem in replacement of the award by ASPIMS. This way, ABIRS exercises her authority, ASPIMMS gets free from MOPOL, and MOPOL gets his money back.
5. All parties agreed. ABiRS executed her part by appointing MOPOL, MOPOL signed up, started the job, getting the benefit of being the State Emblem agent but went back to break all the rules:
a. He still kept selling ASPIMMS as a separate emblem and illegally enforcing same, thereby making nonsense of the Abia State Consolidated Emblem
b. MOPOL has been selling Abia emblem for a minimum of N23,500 as against the N5,500 he made the State place the price at.
c. MOPOL erected illegal roadblocks in villages stopping vehicles with untrained operatives and collecting all sorts of sums from 50,000 naira and more from hapless transporters. He had kept some vehicles for up to 5 days. He has single-handedly caused a hike in transportation fare for vehicles entering Abia State
d. MOPOL is running illegal revenues even while under cover of the board. He is doing MOT, selling buckets etc. These are all illegal revenues
e. MOPOL has sold over 5000 consolidated emblems without remitting same to the State government by using the approved tools of the ABIRS (e-emblem platform).
f. MOPOL rather than expand action on the correct things we have provisioned, continues to concentrate on the illegalities and spread false allegations against the ABIRS Chairman, the consultant Mr. Mac Atasie, attacking his family, threatening the life of our IGR consultant Dr. Kachi Nwoga. All these activities are on record and evidences tendered to law enforcement authorities.
g. MOPOL’s activities have so embarrassed the State that the State security council had to deliberate on it and ask the Governor to call him to order.
h. We have lost count of meetings held with MOPOL to align him to our new ways and get him to do the right things or come to a reasonable agreement, but he has instead continued in his blackmail, hence his official SUSPENSION in July 2022. One wonders why he is being so adamant especially when he has also been a revenue agent for a long time and has not made any meaningful impact in the State's IGR.
This release is coming at this time because the ABIRS will no longer tolerate the unnecessary distraction, the maligning of our consultants and Agents; who invest their monies, time, expertise, and technical resources in Abia State, by people such as Mr. AZUBUIKE ERONDU and his cronies who are bent on sticking to the old ways. The ABIRS has evolved and is steadily moving forward with no intentions of reverting to these old ways.
The Executive Chairman Mr. Agbara Celestine along with Mr. Mac Atasie have been in the forefront of designing and driving initiatives to grow the State's IGR and will not stop doing so.