The Chairman, Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Christopher Zakka Maikalangu, has inaugurated a taskforce for revenue monitoring, inspection and enforcement in the Council.
Performing the inauguration exercise at the Council Secretariat, Maikalangu said that the taskforce would work with mobile courts, lawyers and security agents to curtail the nefarious activities of fake and illegal revenue collectors in the Council.
Maikalangu charged members of the taskforce to ensure they worked within the ambits of the law, shun corruption and favouritism, and avoid double taxation of residents, even as he revealed that a mobile court has been constructed and located at the Council’s Apo Office, to try all revenue offenders as soon as they are attested.
He reminded the people that his administration had earlier taken steps to strengthen the Council’s revenue system, including dissolution of consultancy arrangements and introduction of a cashless regime in revenue collection, with the latest being constitution of the taskforce.
“We are today here to inaugurate the AMAC Taskforce on Enforcement, Revenue Monitoring and Inspection.
“The team will assist us to rid the system of undue molestation, use of thugs as revenue collectors, reduce the activities of fake and unauthorized revenue collectors, in addition, to eradicating all forms of illegal financial transactions”, the Chairman said.
“I wish to assure our revenue paying public to bear with us as we pursue our vision for rapid economic recovery, good governance and accelerated sustainable development,” he appealed.
His words: “We are guided by our deep commitment towards delivering on the much desired dividends of democracy across the 12 electoral wards of the Area Council”.
Some of the specific functions of the taskforce include general monitoring of revenue activities within the Council especially; investigate, discover and stop activities of fake revenue collectors and instil sanity in the revenue sector by identifying grey areas (if any), on the field with a view to mitigating them.
Others are to fish out touts and miscreants in the sector for prosecution; identify incidences of double taxation for further necessary action; as well as arrest and prosecute tax invaders.
Responding on behalf of the 10-member Taskforce, its Chairmen, Yunusa Ahmadu Yusuf thanked Maikalangu for the opportunity to serve and pledged not to disappoint.
“We are not touts. We won’t work like the other people. We will work within the ambit of the law. I want to use this opportunity to warn that anyone who pays money to fake revenue agents in the name of AMAC will have to pay double,” he reiterated.