I DO NOT HAVE TAX ISSUES AS BEING ALLEGED------------IKPEAZU Dr Okezie Victor Ikpeazu, erstwhile DGM, Abia State Environmental Protection Agency in charge of Aba zone and now governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia state, spoke to select journalists on the allegation of tax evasion, falsification of his Ph.D degree amongst other issues in the polity. EMENIKE UBANI was there.Excerpts Recently, it was reported in some national dailies that you did not pay your tax when you were in public service? Nobody will deny the fact that I was General Manager of Abia State Passengers Integrated Manifest Scheme (ASPIMS) for four years, and that I later became Deputy General Manager of Abia State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA) in charge of Aba zone until I resigned on the 10th of August last year to run for the governorship primary of my party which God graciously gave us victory. You also know that every public servant pays tax through the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system which is not a matter of choice. Nonpayment of tax or late payment of tax should not be an issue for any person under the employment of government. Tax as it were is usually deducted before it is handed over to the person. What you receive therefore is post deduction. So, assuming I didn’t want to pay, I don’t have a choice because it is taken away before my salary is given to me. Some people, maybe because of their background, and because if you find yourself within the corridors of certain vocations, it rubs off on you, that you begin to think in very fraudulent and mischievous ways went and imported what they thought were the tax papers of one Chief Okezie Ikpeazu from Obingwa Local Council area who they claimed was a business man and did not pay his tax as at when due and they went to the Federal High Court 2 in Maitaima, Abuja. Little did they know that I had done Cost to Company (CTC) of all my documents in the PDP office here, Abuja and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). What is the true position of things now? Because I have the CTC documents, I handed them over to my lawyer who went to court and challenged their suit. We made our presentations and legal stand known and they saw that their matter was dead on arrival and quickly drafted a letter of withdrawal which was not possible until cost was awarded against them and the court made it known that what they were doing was not only mischievous and close to the spheres of fraud. For the purposes of clarity, I have been a public servant in Abia state and It does not entail one to go to the tax office to negotiate if I will pay or nor because that is not my duty as someone working for the government. So, when ever, anybody comes with spurious allegations or arguments whether tax was paid or not, just know that those people are out to make mockery of themselves and expose how greedy and ignorant they are. I also urge you to approach us when ever such issues arises because we are always available, the best thing to do as journalists which I believe is part of the ethics of your job is to cross check your stories and balance them. It is not good for us, presently and in future to imagine that certain tabloids and news houses have pre-conceived bias against a particular individual. When you publish unbalanced information, it means you are out to achieve mischief. When you get information, go ahead and cross check, if it concerns anybody, reach the person also, it will help to ensure that your information is double-checked for all in intents and purposes. The media is a very strong partner in the development and growth of any society and public opinion participation is also key to that development. What we intend to do in Abia is to consolidate on what the present administration has done and also see if we can take Abia to the next level running faster. I am not trying to take us back to the dungeon, every other society that has done well has built on the foundations laid before. We do not want to go back to the dark ages. In this campaign, we are concerned about discussing the economic blueprint of Abia state of tomorrow and not about tax issues for someone who paid tax through PAYE. It is simply microscopic and it should not be a consideration at all. How can somebody talk about tax now when we are discussing with the people how to take Abia to the next level, socially, politically and economically? I have no tax issues in whatever form. I am so protected because tax is not a matter of choice, I paid compulsorily and I also subscribed to it by doing the job for the salary I was paid .We also have not foreclosed the option of taking any individual that continues all kinds of mud on us, once it goes beyond the realm of what is acceptably legally, we will not hesitate to seek redress in court. It was also alleged that you are using a doctored PhD degree and living in hotels in Aba prior to your emergence as the Abia PDP guber candidate, what is your take? In the first place, I took a PhD from the University of Calabar, it is not in dispute and I have taught in four universities. I couldn’t have done so and eventually become the head of a department if I doctored my PhD and if it is so easy to do so, a lot of people would have being proud owners of the PhD degree. I also do not live in hotels, and for those who live in hotels, it is their private business anyway. I come from Umuobiakwa in Obingwa Local Council Area and I also have a house in Umuahia. I have four children, out of which three are undergraduates with one in high school while my wife is a civil servant. I have always comported myself in a graceful manner that I have become the pride of my people. The allegation is utterly baseless. However, there is no limit to what people can do in desperation. In a football game, it is the person with the ball that is tackled, if they do not say these things to attack me, that means I am not with the ball and I am not doing anything. I expect them to say more. One thing they cannot say is that I am not an Ngwa man. They also have not said that I had to build a house elsewhere to run elections. That they can say about other people and not me. It is rumored that you are the godson of the present governor who in 2010 celebrated his liberation from the clutches of his predecessor. How are you going to deal with the monster of godfatherism if you eventually become governor? Is governor Fashola of Lagos State a product of godfatherism? Is the government of governor Obiano of Anambra State a product of godfatherism? Is the emergence of our dear president a product of it also? Those are questions for you to answer. There is a lot of hypocrisy in politics, when I went out to seek for the gubernatorial ticket of my party, the PDP, part of what I needed to do was consultations and to seek for endorsements. To do that, I saw every member of the Abia state elders council and some of them, when you go to talk to them, you discuss your background and vision and try to convince them with what you have to offer. Many times, I was told to go back and come again for more discussions, after which I was endorsed if the person is convinced. I had to pass through this rigor, one major stakeholder and elder to another, from former senate president, Adolphus Nwagbara, Vincent Ogbulafor to Anagha Ezeikpe, Bob Nwannunu, Ojo Maduekwe and many others. Furthermore, my people took me to Governor Theodore Orji and said this is the man we trust who will not put us to shame and that has the capacity to take Abia to the next level. I sought for Gov Orji endorsement and he has the right as a person to cast a vote for who so ever he desires on the day of the primaries. I want to tell you that all other candidates including the ones that abandoned PDP to fly the flag of another party also sought to buy that endorsement, and spent billions of naira in the process of trying to buy that endorsement. How can you now shout foul in the morning and fox in the night? I do not think that inconsistency is part of what we need to govern Abia or any state. If you are an inconsistent man, you are not even qualified to lead Abia, you cannot come from two local governments at the same time. You can not belong to two or three political parties at the same time and which you are not registered in any. Inconsistency tells a story of desperation which is something we should be wary of so for me the fact that I may have received endorsement of major stakeholders in PDP and emerged as the flagbearer, their anger is that I am a common man which is also against all common people. The fact that I may have received the endorsement of major political stakeholders in my party does not mean that I am devoid of vision. I do not come to power just because I am a bonafide son of Obingwa in Abia south zone; I come to serve with a very strong pedigree. There is no other candidate of any party in the race who is a PhD holder. If you also ask if I have the capacity to analyze issues and solve problems, I am way up there. If you want to know if am also practical and innovative to use local content to achieve results, then go through my records in ASEPA. If you want to know if I am humble enough to lead, also go through my pedigree. With this robust background, I am confident that I have what it takes to take Abians to the next level, I am not the kind of person that will be deterred by strings and I have a firm promise by the leadership of the state presently that he will not allow me suffer what he passed through when the previous governor handed over to him and I hold him firm to that promise. Those who know him can attest that he is a man of his words. The problem is that a game changer has emerged, the traditional aspirants and those who thought it was their birthright could not contend with God and what He wants to do for Abia state of tomorrow so I want to assure you that godfatherism in the politics of Abia state is gone forever. The process that produced me is different from the process you can look as godfatherism. In those days, all you needed to do was to go to one kitchen and talk to the son and mother and you will become. I made over 172 speeches in the presence of over 42 critical stakeholders in this state which crystallized into my emergence. You can’t call it godfatherism! I emerged through a process which was endorsed by Abians because they know where we are going to. Your vision for Abians? You have to look at the global picture of the Nigerian economy now; the concept is encapsulated into what they call the new Nigerian economy which takes a diversion from the traditional source of revenue which is oil. They are thinking about diversifying the economic base of the nation so that we can have other means of raising revenue to drive our country. So for any state which wants to make progress, they must find a way to look for alternative means of funding projects and infrastructural development in the state. We are looking at three things in Abia state. The first one is what do we do about our internally generated revenue? In looking at the challenge of IGR, we also look at why we have not been able to do so well. It was about #250 million on the average before Gov Oji stepped it up to about #600 million every month. And we are saying that Abia can make about 2 billion or 3 billion from IGR and how do we achieve it? First, we have to work on our intuitions and make our institutions of service delivery strong. If we want to generate revenue through waste management, we must make sure that the waste management process runs like clockwork and then with your right hand you can demand that somebody pays for waste management services which have been rendered. So we are going to strengthen institutions of service across Abia state. We are going look into trade, commerce, and small and medium scale industries and there is no reason why we should not have a new industrial cluster in Aba where power will be regular, where equipments critical to finishing of the products of Aba people can be brought to bear making them partners in that business. We must also do something about the infrastructure of that area which is laying the golden egg. The other aspects concerns donor agencies outside Nigeria who are funding education, water supply, Small and Medium sized Enterprises, (SMEs) and for you to attract them, you must have a template on ground and what you have to do is to have a reliable data. You also need to put round pegs in round holes, people that are transparent enough and have capacity to deliver because that is the face the outside world will see. These are some of the things we are planning so we are looking at an Abia state of tomorrow whose economy will be driven by private sector participation and it is possible. What you will get from Aba will enable you develop Arochukwu, Ikwuano and other parts of Abia. As I speak for the past 25 years and the first time last week, train service has been restored in Umuoba , what this means is that we can talk about movement because transport is key to commerce. We will bring rail transport back to Abia because no other state in the south-east has the kind of complement of railway lines which our state has. There is Mbawsi, Umuahia, Aba, Umuoba, Ovim and you can access Portharcourt and Enugu. This is just a tip of the iceberg of what I intend to bring to the doorsteps of Abians
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 05:36:35 +0000
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