Freezing Accounts Of South East Business Owners By Firs Is Sectional – COSEYL


Group, Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, (COASEYL), has accussed Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, of freezing bank accounts of some business owners from Igbo extraction in the country.

In a statement signed by Hon. Goodluck Ibem, President General, Comrade Kanice Igwe, Secretary General the group emphasized that the act was against the unity of the country.

They called on the tax body to redirect their steps as such would make millions of Nigerians poor and poor.

“COASEYL regrets the alleged cases of freezing of accounts and business accounts belonging mostly to South East is indeed against the spirit of unity and selective at a time like the post-Covid-19 era when businesses are going under and governments trying inordinately hard to bail out some globally so that job losses, inflation, purchasing power decline would not attend this critical period.

“COSEYL gathers with regret the move by Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, which is not unconnected with freezing of certain accounts on the grounds of tax-related matters/offences. Importers of ethanol pay excise duties and import duties which translates into double taxation even when it is not advisable to pay excise as an importer. Ethanol is a raw material and this excise duty charge reflects on prices of goods with the poor consumer bearing the whole brunt.



frozen account
” The FIRS, COSEYL believes, is by law duly mandated to see to the transaction of taxes and revenue all over the federation, it is not by law mandated to go about it selectively as may remind a certain section of the country of the civil war and the decades following – 1970s!

“In certain cases were personal accounts of owners of frozen business accounts blocked without any proof of infraction or non-compliance with the law. This way, private businesses are closed and and individuals account holders made to suffer deprivation. It should be recalled that the South East does not boast more or much of federal presence as do some states and cities with high-rise buildings and federal base yet a city like Aba has today an edifice of the FIRS.

“Saddened by this event, COSEYL forthrightly demands that such business and private accounts in the region be unfrozen without prejudice to the law. And, while this is the case, COSEYL wants FIRS to state which extant or relevant laws that empower it to seize accounts in that manner. Nigeria belongs to all her ethnic groups and none should try to militate or lord it over the other.

“Today in the South East region there’s no single sea port working optimally even when ordinarily this should have been the case. The Coalition wishes to remind the FIRS that the best it ought to be doing at a time like this is creating pro-poor and pro-people revenue policies so that small scale businesses and baby industries are protected and kept afloat”.#

#orientdailynews