Lamentation of Abia Landlords As They Groan Under Tax Burden, Infrastructure Dysfunction

For landlords and businessmen in Abia State, their lifetime investments have become curses rather than blessings. Or so it seems.
Those who own houses and/or do businesses in God’s own State adorn the garment of sor­row. They are biting their fingers because of the stifling conditions they found them­selves.
To start with, social infrastructure and ame­nities have decayed terribly. From Umuahia, the capital of the state, to Aba, the commercial nerve centre, it is the same story. Story of de­crepitude: broken roads, overflowing garbage, blocked drainages and flood ravaged environ­ments. It is the story of criminal neglect and abandonment of a state by a clueless admin­istration.
But in spite of the colossal dysfunctional in­frastructure, landlords and business owners in the state are subjected to all manner of taxes and levies. And as someone put it, you must be a first-class brain to be able to remember off-hand all the levies and taxes landlords and business men pay on their premises ev­ery year. And even if you could remember what you paid in any given year, you must pay more in the coming year because new ones are manufactured all the time. “When­ever they experience brainwave, they come to the landlords or businessmen with a new levy even if it sounds idiotic. There is no kind of levy they have not forced us to pay in the last seven years or so. It is a burden too heavy to bear,” remarked Pa Ndukwe, who said that he came to Aba in 1961.
Another landlord, Nduka said: “By the grace of God, I have been a landlord in Aba for about 20 years. You can imagine how long I’ve been here. So, I think that I’m in a good position to talk about our beloved Enyimba city and the state at large. I lived in other peo­ple’s houses before I built mine. But the things happening now, in terms of multiplicity of levies and taxes, are strange to us. These lev­ies are orchestrated by some groups of people but I don’t know if they have the backing of the government of the day. But if they do not have the backing of government, I don’t think they will be going about it with such impunity, collecting the levies by force. Another prob­lem in the state is the bad state of the roads. In Aba, for instance, if you enter inside Ngwa Road, which is densely populated, the roads are nothing to write home about. So, it is a thing of great worry to the residents. There is also the problem of flood, which is ravaging many areas because of lack of proper water channels. Though in terms of security there is some form of improvement, something needs to be done, especially in the inner areas. Elec­tricity is also in very short supply. We hardly see electric power in some parts of Aba for long periods of time. We experience blackout all the time. So, on the whole, life in Abia is not easy at all. We don’t know what they do with all the money they extort from us.”
Speaking specifically on the proliferation of levies in Abia, he said: “For instance, you will be in the shop and some group of people will come and say that you should pay busi­ness premises levy, store licence and oper­ational permit at the same time. If you look at all these things, you may not differentiate between a business premises levy and store licence because you do business in the store located at a particular premise. These levies are killing us.”
Nduka went on: “In our homes, we pay in­frastructural levy, property rate, environmen­tal levy and sanitation levy. The rates are not fixed; every building is being assessed and based on their assessment, they will tell you how much to pay. We do not pay as a group; we pay individually. So, I may not know what another person pays on his property. I own a small bungalow and I pay between N8,000 and N10,000 to Abia State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA) per year and N3,600 infrastructural levy per year. I also pay property rate of N10,000 per year. We don’t have drinking water in the town; we de­pend on boreholes and sometimes the water is not quite okay for drinking. But since we do not have alternative, we still drink it and God, in His infinite mercy, is helping us so that we do not contract serious pipe-borne water dis­eases. We still pay borehole levy.”
Thugs as revenue agents
Investigations revealed that revenue consul­tants in the state employ crude methods, com­mando style, to extort money from hapless citizens. They regularly invade homes and business premises to collect all manner of lev­ies and taxes such as infrastructure, develop­ment, water tank, borehole, fire extinguisher, security, window display, residence and man­agement. With the backing of weapon-wield­ing touts and policemen, they intimidate, harass, embarrass, molest and assault people with reckless abandon. It does not matter if the victims are visitors, customers, workers or residents of the building being invaded.
Woe betide you when the thugs meet you in a targeted premises. They will beat you mer­cilessly, arrest and dump you in police station or court untill you pay the levies. If they did not meet the landlord, they will take whoever they meet in an attempt to smoke out the land­lord. Many innocent people, including tenants and visitors, had been arraigned in local courts and fined for offences they were innocent of. Even passersby are nabbed and detained.
For the agents, it does not matter whose ox is gored. Consider this: A traditional ruler, who intervened when his subjects were being brutalized in Aba North Local Government Area was reportedly manhandled by the reve­nue agents, not long ago. The traditional ruler was said to have been pushed to the ground by overzealous revenue agents, who gave him a few slaps for not “respecting himself.”
A source disclosed: “Sometimes the rev­enue agents and policemen will storm your business premises and declare that you are wanted in court. They will accuse you of evading justice even when you had not been issued any summons. They will accuse you of not paying sundry levies. It doesn’t matter whether you had paid or not. As long as you are not carrying the receipts at the time of the arrest, you will be taken away. And once you are taken away, you will be bailed with be­tween N20,000 and N50, 000.”
According to an official of the National Association of Proprietors of Private School Owners in Aba, revenue agents also raid schools. He said that early one morning, “by 6.35am, a bus fully loaded with touts and po­licemen were at the gate of a school. A pro­prietor of a school was shot in the leg for not paying borehole fee which was non-existent in his school.” He added that private schools were asked to pay laboratory and animal hus­bandry levies, among others. “They don’t al­low us to talk. One second, you are already inside their bus,” he explained.
It got to a point that the state government purportedly set up a committee to “articulate modalities for effective, sustainable and ac­countable revenue collection for the state.” But whatever purpose it was meant to serve, the number of levies and taxes did not reduce, particularly in Aba.
Sources volunteered that local councils were also desperately involved in the reve­nue drive because they were being starved of funds by the state government. The misery of the citizens of Abia was increased because government allegedly gave revenue contract to agents and the agents pay upfront. So, to re­coup their investments as well as make profit, the agents devise all manner of strategies to succeed. According to an official of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Aba chapter, some of the agents collect Ochendo fee and Ikuku fee.
Levies at a glance
Indeed, in Abia State, landlords and busi­ness people pay for virtually everything under the sun. Here are some of the levies collect­ed by the state and local governments: ASE­PA fee for disposal of refuse: Living Room (N4,800 pa), Store (N1,200 pa), Flat (N2,400 pa), Warehouse, factories, institutions, etc (N24,000 – N120,000 pa).
State: Infrastructural levy (N5,000 – N25,000), Business premises registration (N20,000 – N100,000), Business premises renewal (N10,000 – N50,000)
ASEPA sanitation fee for companies and businesses: (N24,000 – N120,000), Certificate
(N15,000), Emblem (N5,000), Support fee (N10,000 – N30,000), Effluent discharge (N60,000 – N120,000), Car wash (N40,000 – N150,000), Environmental impact assess­ment (borehole) (N22,000), Site approval (borehole) discretional, Users fee (N6,000), Fumigation (N60,000), Disilting (scooping) of drainage (N24,000), Washing of water tank (borehole) (N24,000 per tank) and Excavation permit (N6,000).
Water board borehole: Annual inspection (N7,500 – 18,500), Water analysis (N5,500), Permit to drill (N3,750)
Local governments: Property rate – value of property, Advert fee – size and number of signboards, operational licence (N10,000 – N50,000), Liquor licence (N3,000 – N30,000), Hotel licence (30,000 – N50,000), Economic licence (N20,000 – N100,000), Eating house licence (N10,000 – N20,000), Radio/TV li­cence (10,000 – N150,000), Fumigation (N30,000 – N120,000), Excavation permit (building) discretional, Excavation permit (borehole) discretional, Health department (borehole) (N5,000), Health approval certifi­cate (N10,000 – N30,000), Health certificate of fitness (N10,000 – N30,000), Site approval certificate (discretional), House numbering fee (discretional) and Daily dues from market women and roadside traders (N50 – N100).
Detention centres
It was learnt that the revenue agents have three detention centres in Aba namely, Aba South council headquarters, Cameroun Road barrack and a magistrate court.
The list of those who had been arrested and detained is endless, as it were. But consid­er these cases: Mrs Uduak Etim from Cross River State, who came to visit her daughter in Aba, was arrested for non-payment of in­frastructure/development levy while going to a call centre to inform her daughter of her arrival and where she was. The hapless wom­an was bundled into a vehicle and taken to a magistrate court in the city.
A nurse, Mrs Chioma Ajike, was arrest­ed by revenue agents at Hopeville Specialist Hospital where she works and detained at Cameroun Barracks Police headquarters. The agents had come for the medical director of the hospital but since he was not around, they whisked away the nurse who was preparing to take her leave after working overnight. It took the intervention of some notable organisations and individuals before she regained her free­dom at about 3.00pm that day.
It was gathered that no fewer than four per­sons died in the hands of revenue agents in Abia last year. A police source maintained that policemen accompany revenue agents be­cause “some people will not be willing to pay the levies just like that. That’s why we follow the agents.”

The Sun Report written by Henry Umahi