The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the
proposal for business mogul, Aliko Dangote, to construct
Lokoja-Obajana-Ilorin Road.
Dangote Cement’s Obajana factory is located along that axis.
In return, Dangote will hold back 30 percent of his company’s income tax for some years.
The
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this
to State House correspondents at the end of FEC meeting presided over
by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He was accompanied by the Ministers
of Information, Lai Mohammed; Labour, Chris Ngige and Justice and
Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.
He said: “We
presented a memo to council for consideration. The memo seeks to take
benefits of the existing policy and regulation. It seeks to take
benefits of tax policies, tax laws for the purpose of using them to
drive infrastructural development renewal.
“So we presented a proposal by one of the subsidiary of Dangote
group, a construction company, for the construction of a section of
Lokoja-Obajana-Kabba-Ilorin, specifically the section between
Obajana-Kabba Road using cement as demonstrative of how perhaps we
should continue to build going forward in order to reduce maintenance on
the road and the company proposing to fund the construction of that
section of the road in exchange for some tax remissions.
“Companies
are ordinarily suppose to pay income tax. There are existing policies
in our laws which enable government to consider and give taxes
incentives.
“So Council consider and approved the proposal for
Dangote construction company to build that section of the road because
the tonnage of cement being produced from the factory has increased and
the traffic in that area has increased, there had been unfortunate
accidents also.
“So it is a total economy policy which council
considered and approved because it gives support to industry, it enables
us take benefit of our tax law to renew infrastructure at a time we are
really challenged for resources to finance all our routes. It also
enables us to save lives by quickly and urgently rebuilding that road so
that other commuters who also depend on that road for their livelihood
would also benefit from the road.
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