HARRISON EDEH,ABUJA
Investors at the ongoing Direct Investors Summit organised by the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) want the Federal Government to address the challenge of multiple taxation to sustain the inflow of investments into Nigeria.
Nigeria’s capital importation for the first quarter in 2018, translated to $6.3 billion. The investment inflow in the first quarter of 2018 is more than all of the flows that came in 2016 and industry watchers are already expressing optimism that Nigeria has better years ahead to attract more investments.
At the Business Match-Making event organised by the NIPC to round off the Direct Investor’s Summit in Abuja on Wednesday, some investors who spoke to BusinessDay urged the government to address concerns of multiple taxation.
What the NIPC needs to do is to come up with a single Tax window, or incentives for businesses, such that if you are coming to invest in Nigeria, you plan your financial standards ahead of them.
“Today, no business can build its tax expenditure into its financial statements because of the multiplicity of taxation in Nigeria. We want a single tax system so that investors would not be scared to invest into the country, “Charles Akhigbe, the managing director of Ames Pipe Mill and Coating Plant LTD, told BusinessDay at the Investor summit.
While urging the states to domesticate some of the key efforts of the Federal Government, he said, “States must domesticate all these efforts.”
Speaking further on the investments opening from the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan focused labs, he said,” At the ERGP workshop, we actually achieved four star status for our three Edo projects, and those projects will be domiciled in Edo state. They consist of two Truck Transit Parks ,one on the Benin Expressway at Avielle, and the other one at a community called Uteko on the Benin bye-pass.
He noted further that,”Under Manufacturing and processing, we also presented and achieved four star status for AMES Pipe Mill and Coating Plant LTD. The pipe mill is a 250,000 tonns per annum pipe mill, which would produce about 200 to 300 pipes per annum. “We are working in a joint venture with the Nigerian Content Development Board and we will sign the final contract with the Federal Government, “he said.
Industry watchers are optimistic that the ERGP is expected to open up investments commitments of about $25 billion and create up to 600,000 jobs between now and the year 2020.” This is significant for our economy and we must keep brining investors together under one umbrella,” an economic expert said.
Charles said, “The pipe mill industry is new to Nigeria and would create room for technical and vocational education in the country. These would ensure that people are trained on the skills and encourage more indigenous participation.”
The AMES Pipe Mills and Coating Plant will create about 3,000 jobs spread across various value chains.
