School refuses to enroll hermaphroditic child

A family in Nyeri County are facing a dilemma after their child was kicked out of school because it was born with both male and female genitals.

According to the child’s guardian, the 11-year -old was born on April 25, 2007, and the birth document they were issued at the hospital indicated that the child was a boy.

“I have lived with this child’s mother for the past four years. She is the last born of three siblings and when she was born, we gave her a boy’s name; but now, we had to change it to a girl’s name because a doctor told us to,” he noted.

The family produced documents which indicated medical records from a visit to county referral hospital on March 18, 2103, where a doctor indicated that the child had undergone an examination and been found to have both sex organs

“The male sex organ is dormant and no activity noted, while the female sex organ is active, which is demonstrated by the child’s characteristics when passing urine,” the records indicated.

The records further stated: “Meanwhile the child can be identified as a girl to await future development to facilitate easier learning environment.”

For a few years the family had enrolled the child in a private school but after falling on hard financial times, they had no alternative but to take her to a public school in Kiganjo town. “I personally took her to the school this term but after the head teacher found out about her condition they demanded a birth certificate and expelled her from the institution,”For a few years the family had enrolled the child in a private school but after falling on hard financial times, they had no alternative but to take her to a public school in Kiganjo town. “I personally took her to the school this term but after the head teacher found out about her condition they demanded a birth certificate and expelled her from the institution,”

He explained. Armed with the two conflicting document, the family are unsure what to indicate as the gender of the child on the birth certificate application forms as they cannot be left blank.

 “If we indicate she is a boy on her birth certificate, yet she is identified as a girl we shall be lying and there is no option of leaving it blank on the document,” the distraught father stated.

Fearful that his daughter may lack basic education.

POLITICS

Adeyeye dumps PDP, faults governorship primary

Published

Nigeria to propose five tax amendment bills – Osinbajo

Five tax amendment bills are coming, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo announced Wednesday in Abuja.

The vice president said the federal government’s committee on the National Tax Policy (NTP) has drafted five amendment bills which will soon be sent to the National Assembly. This is in collaboration with states and other stakeholders to ensure that Nigeria’s tax laws and the NTP are friendly and realistic.

“Our tax system requires review, to among others, ensure removal of obsolete and contradictory clauses. That was why we raised a committee in 2016. The committee’s work has produced five amendment bills that will soon be sent to National Assembly. Our aim is that no one is left at the mercy of bad tax regime.

“I am happy at new levels of cooperation between states and the federal government which we have seen in the implementation of VAIDS. I am pleased to note that the number of registered taxpayers is now in excess of 19 million,” he said.

The vice president said the embrace of technology to collect tax and to block leakages in public expenditure—like the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and accompanying transparency in public expenditure, — are significant game changers. He compared the changes this brought about to the impact which invention of electricity had on people’s lives when it was invented.He noted that free education, which was funded solely from tax revenue, ensured a spiral in school enrolment in the old Western region-from 355,000 in 1952 when it was introduced to 811,000 in 1959. It was the highest in Africa at the time.

The vice president noted too that key infrastructural provision in Western Nigeria: University of Ife, Airport hotel in Ikeja, 25-storey building Cocoa House building in Ibadan, several industrial estates in many parts of the Western Region, were made possible by tax money from people’s pocket.

Citing further statistics about national tax collection, the vice president observed that Lagos alone generates more Internally Generated Revenue than over 30 states combined. “Of the 70 million taxable individuals, only 14 million pay any form of tax. Of the 943 individuals who pay any form of self-assessment and who pay above N10 million, 941 live in Lagos State. Two live in Ogun State.

The vice president who observed that tax is not a subject that excites most people in the world, said tax is a social-contract question that should bind citizens and trigger robust interest in governance, accountability and democracy. He recalled that it was tax that triggered the slogan “No taxation without representation” that was the rallying cry for the American war of independence. Tax, he said, was also at the root of the riots in Aba and Abeokuta – both led by women.He noted the gains of over N200 billion which the federal government made from the deployment of technology to track ghost workers and the Treasury Single Account (TSA) from whence the federal government has made savings of about N4 billion monthly. This has strengthened its ability to spend more on infrastructure, he said.

He also said the economic prosperity of Nigeria will come from taxation and encouraged taxpayers to always tax right taxes at the right time as that is the fulfilment of their responsibilities as citizens.

At the same event, the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Tunde Fowler, said the service is building a robust that system that is making tax payment convenient to taxpayers both at the federal level and at the states and local government levels.

“What we are doing is to build a tax system that will not only be effective at the Federal level but also at the states and local government levels. Nobody wants to pay taxes. Not even the tax administrator. So, we have to make tax payment convenient and attractive. Attractive in the sense that people must see what you are doing with the tax money. That is what the FIRS and the Joint Tax Board (JTB) are doing”, he said.

Mr Fowler said it is the culture of the JTB to go to the states to inspect projects that state governments are handling. By doing that, he said, “states which are not doing well get inspired by their counterparts who are using the tax money well to build facilities for their people.

“The only way you can improve the tax system is through technology. FIRS has rolled out six-online solutions through which you can pay your taxes online (e-payment), e-receipt. You can download your receipts and authenticate the receipts using your smart phones. We have e-Stamp duties, e-filing, e-Withholding Tax e-alerts, e-payment, e-Tax Clerance Certificates, etc

W’Africa’s Capital Market Regulators To Design Common Cross-Border Listing Rules

Apex capital market regulators within the West African region under the aegis of the West African Securities Regulatory Authorities (WASRA) have agreed to fashion a set of rules that would guide seamless cross-border listing within the sub-region.


A statement by the Nigeria’s Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) said the body saddled with the responsibility is at the verge of concluding the assignment of producing a mutually acceptable basis for cooperation and consultations in a bid to foster market integration in the region.

The rules on cross border trading and settlement of securities, which is among the highpoints of a meeting of WASRA in Budapest, Hungary, Sunday on the sidelines of the 43rd Conference/meeting of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).
It would, among others, allow foreign companies carry out their businesses within the region, while helping to deepen capital markets.

The statement quoted Chairman of WASRA and Executive Secretary of Le Conseil Regional de l’Epargne Publique et des Marches Financiers (CREPMF), Abidjan, Mory Soumahoro, as announcing the decision, just as he spoke of plans for establishment of a regional bond issuing framework for infrastructure financing.

Work on modalities of the bond which may become the first cross-border instrument issued in the sub-region, he noted, has commenced.

WASRA said it is working towards building relationship between WASRA and ECOWAS Commission; the integrated supervision model needed for the establishment of cross border transaction and issuers; the development of the WASRA website and the monitoring framework and review and recommendation of appropriate risk management framework for the supervision in the region (issuance of cross border).

Commenting on the bond issuance, Acting Director General, SEC Nigeria, Ms. Mary Uduk commended WASRA members on the desire to building a strong and competitive regional market that will rank at par with the markets of other regions of the world, and more importantly, in the areas of transparency, disclosure, efficiency, accountability and indeed, investor protection.
She expressed the commitment of SEC Nigeria to help achieve the objectives of WASRA, stressing the imperative of a cohesive collaboration between the relevant regulators, operators and other stakeholders in West Africa, and the need to ensure that adequate resources are devoted.

The meeting was attended by the SEC’s Acting Executive Commissioner, Operations, by Isyaku Tilde, who represented Uduk; DG SEC-Ghana, Rev. Daniel Obgarmey Tetteh and Mory Soumahoro, the Secretary General of CEPMF (Chairman WASRA). Others include the board Chairman of SEC Ghana, Dr. Yeboa Amoa; members of the Technical Committee (TC) from SEC Ghana, Jacob Aidoo, Emmanuel Appiah, the Secretariat, Harouna Ouedraogo and three observers from SEC Nigeria: Tony Iloka, Mrs Efe Ebelo and Ms Nneka Okonkwo.

WASRA is a regional organization for West African countries that aims to fashion out modalities and to establish an umbrella body as mutually acceptable basis for cooperation and consultations aimed at fostering market integration in the region. WASRA, established in 2015, is the recognized forum for capital markets regulators in the West African Sub Region

MTN Seeks N400bn Debt Capital To Fund Nigerian Investment, Refinance Debt

MTN Group Limited plans to borrow as much as N400bn ($1.1 billion) in Nigeria this year as it seeks to fund local investment and replace existing debt by selling bonds while taking out long-term loans as Nigeria recovers from a 2016 economic contraction.

 The carrier expects to list its Nigerian unit on the Lagos stock exchange by the end of 2018, following which the country’s Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is preparing for record bond issuance from companies seeking to benefit from lower interest rates and an economy on the mend, it said this week.

“We want to gear up our debt on an operational level away from the holding structure,” Chief Financial Officer Ralph Mupita said in an interview with Bloomberg.
“The debt must be where the Ebidta is and we want to raise as much as possible in local currency,” added.

MTN’s net debt rose to 57bn Rand ($4.5 billion) in 2017 from 52bn Rand the previous year. The Johannesburg-based company plans to shift its focus from dollar-denominated debt to debt in local currencies where it operates, said Mupita.
MTN also recently raised money in local currency for its Ghanaian and Ivory Coast operations, according to Bloomberg data.

VAIDS: Nigeria’s Tax Net Records 36% Growth In 12 Months, Says Osinbajo

Abuja said the nation’s tax net (the number of economically-active tax paying Nigerians) grew in excess of five million or 35.7% from 14m in May last year to over 19 so far, helped by the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS).

VAIDS is a 12-month amnesty window, aimed at growing the tax net by allowing Nigerians at home and abroad to regularise their tax status by declaring and paying taxes on all previously undeclared income and assets, without the fear of investigation or prosecution. One of its goals is to raise Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio from the current 6 percent to 15% by 2020.

Declaring open the 20th conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) in Abuja, Osinbajo said the feat, among others, was achieved an unprecedented push “to rewrite the tax narrative in Nigeria, to ensure that everyone, citizens, businesses, investors, tax professionals, governments, all derive maximum benefit from the system.”

Click here for more : Invest Data

For him, the easy argument that Nigeria should wait until economic growth and development brings informal players into the formal systems and then the tax net is unhelpful. Such attitude, he said, is responsible for keeping the country on the same spot for decades.
“It seems to me that we must find a way of fixing this car while the engine is running,” he stressed.

The nation, he continued, has carried on as an oil-rich country, one without the need for its citizens’ taxes, while urging those who care to pay whatever taxes they can for decades. In exchange, government, he continued, got the right to do as it liked with Nigeria’s oil wealth, fueling “massive corruption and inefficiencies that have come to be associated with public revenue management.”