By Isaac Kertyo, Makurdi
The Principal of Peniel College, Makurdi, Mr Timothy Iortim, has lamented the continued imposition of taxes on schools in Benue State by Benue Internal Revenue Service (BIRS) and the Ministry of Education and Knowledge Management, describing it as a deliberate policy to make things difficult for them.
Mr Iortim who made his position known while fielding questions from Daybreak Nigeria in Makurdi on Friday, pointed out that this has posed a very big challenge for them now that commodities in the market have skyrocketed.
“We have a lot of challenges not only for this term, as sole administrators in a state where there are no industries, we are facing a lot of challenges in the sense that both the Ministry of Education and Knowledge Management and Benue Internal Revenue Service, BIRS, are imposing taxes on us knowing fully well that things are difficult and parents are finding it difficult to comply in payment of their children’s school fees and this has posed a very big challenge for us.”
“The prices of things in the market, prices of fuel, the cost of transportation fare everything has gone up, and with the implementation of the minimum wage, the schools as well have to do something, and this has posed a very big challenge for us. The way things are going, telling parents to increase tuition fee is another difficult thing,” he declared.
The Educationist admonished government to be alive to its responsibilities of providing facilities such as water etc to its citizens, instead of compelling schools to pay taxes for the facilities schools have provided. He described some of the taxes as illegal, stressing that it’s unfair for them to demand that schools should pay some of the taxes.
“There’s the one that we are paying that is called ternament rate. I don’t know the meaning of that because we are paying for business premises, and they’re also demanding that we should pay for ternament. Like now they said all schools should pay for e-dosier, school census, to me I don’t know the meaning of these things.
“This e-dosier they are talking about, it has not been implemented. And now those of us that have external examination centers like WAEC, NECO and NABTEB and the rest, we are being held ransom to pay these monies before they will allow us to register our students,” he further lamented.
