By Jude Michael
Tuesday, 20th August, 2024, will remain yet another bad day, for commercial tricycle operators, popularly known as Keke NAPEP riders in Awka Capital Territory as Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s Government came up with a revenue collection method aimed at ensuring fairness in tax collection as it concerns the Keke riders and others in the transport sector.
The Government, on the day, launched a technological device called ‘TRANSPAY’ to enable the commercial tricyclists to pay tax only when they work.
According to the Chairman, and the Executive Director, Assessment, Anambra Internal Revenue Service, Dr Gregory Ezilo, and Mr Ben Okafor, respectively, each of the commercial tricyclists in the state would compulsorily pay N35, 000, for the installation of the device in their tricycles.
The revenue chiefs, while launching the programme in Awka, explained that the payment was spread across a three-year period in which each of the tricyclists would pay N250 every day for convenience purposes.
They therefore appealed to the tricyclists to accept the initiative, which they described as double-edged, as the device also has a tracker for the protection of their tricycles from theft.
However, this appeal and explanations by the Anambra revenue helmsmen, and the Chief Technical Officer, Greengine, a Lagos-based company in charge of the installation of the device, Mr Tony Okoye, did not go down well with the stakeholders and the leadership of the tricyclists who were gathered at the office of Unified Hybrid Enforcement Team, Anambra Internal Revenue Service, Awka.
The more they tried to convince the Keke leaders, comprising Chairmen, Vice Chairmen, and Secretaries of various units in Awka Capital Territory, the more they (Keke leaders) became furious, shouting, ‘No, no; we don’t want,’ even as they boldly expressed lack of confidence in the government.
Some of them, who spoke to the press shortly after the event, which seemed to have not fulfilled its aim as the target group rejected it, included the Nibo Unit Chairman, Okwuchukwu Okoli; his Regina Caeli counterpart, Okpuno axis, Engr Elias Okonkwo; the Financial Secretary, Awka North and South, Tricycle Owners and Riders Riders Association, Pastor Sunday Udeh; among others.
They said that things were very hard currently in the country, noting that Soludo’s Government ought to understand that.
‘It’s only through this Keke we get what we use to feed our families, and pay all manner of bills, including security, which is the primary responsibility of the government.
‘If I may ask, what’s this government doing for us? We’re the only ones paying them.
‘Every morning, if you come out to work, you pay the park owners; for every load you also pay, and every week you pay the government N2, 000.
‘Now the government wants us to be paying N200 every day for three years in the name of tracker. We’ve been saying no, we don’t want.
‘The burden of the ones we’re paying already is too much on us,’ one of them said.
‘Actually, the idea for the tracker is good, but the problem is the payment. So, if the government wants it, let them do it for us free of charge,’ another of the Keke riders begged.
Also speaking to the press, the Chairman, Tricycle Owners and Riders Association, Awka Zone, Prince Collins Ozorjiofor, appealed for calm, describing the TRANSPAY Device Installation Initiative as wonderful, but expressed dismay that it came without proper briefing and sensitization by the government.
Noting that the policy was not a programme to be rushed so as to avoid chaos, Prince Ozorjiofor appealed to the government to take it easy with the Keke riders and expressed readiness to engage with the government, including the company in charge, for the best alternative to go about the initiative.
Ozorjiofor, like his followers, said that things were very difficult now and that it was not something the government should rush into to avoid chaos and anarchy, even though the idea of the TRANSPAY was a wonderful initiative.
‘Also, I’m appealing to Keke riders to be calm; we’re on it. We’ll engage the government through the office of the Chairman, AIRS, including the company in charge, for best alternative ways to go about this tracker installation,’ Ozorjiofor said.
He lauded the State Governor, Prof Soludo, for his performance in road infrastructure across the state.
