07 August 2023

Nigeria’s president Ahmed Bola Tinubu has ordered the suspension of the 5% excise duty levied on telecommunications services in Nigeria, among other taxes.

The 5% excise duty on telecom services was introduced last May by the government of ex-president Muhammadu Buhari, a month after the minister of communications and digital economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, announced that it had been permanently deleted. This is a measure provided for in the 2020 finance law which the government had used to increase its revenues while revenues from oil and gas were falling. The initiative was unveiled in July 2022, but its implementation was suspended in September 2022.

This new levy was in addition to the 40 categories of taxes, duties, and fees to which the Nigerian telecoms sector is subject. It should bring in 150 billion naira to the state.

Through the suspension of the telecom services tax, president Tinubu intends to put Nigerians at the centre of government policies and to tackle the tax policy measures unfavourable to companies and the multiplicity of taxes, as he had promised during his of his inauguration last May.