CPS sayts new Log Tax regime will boost revenue profile

Taraba Government said its new Log tax regime was to increase the state internally generated revenue profile.

Alhaji Hassan Mijinyawa, Chief Press Secretary (CSP) to Governor, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jalingo on Sunday.

Hassan said with the new tax regime, trucks conveying a particular variety of log called Madrid would be charged N400,000.

He noted that the Madrid logs which were in high demand were exported to China and other Asian countries.

Hassan said government was looking inward and cashing in on large expanse of timber cultivation that was found in many local government areas of the state.

He said loggers were compelled to replant the trees to avert extinction, ensure the sustainability of the environment and control desertification.

He said the state government was also giving priority to mining, cocoa and tea production in Sardauna, Gashaka and Kurmi Local Government Areas to enhanced its internally generated revenue.

``To reduce the activities of illegal miners, the state government has secured mining deed from the Federal Government which will enable the state control and coordinate mining activities in the state.’’

Under the arrangement, he said the state government would go into commercial mining and would enact a law to regulate mining activities to boost the state revenue profile.

Hassan disclosed that under the former arrangement illegal miners carried out the activities without approval of the Federal Government which had the exclusive right.

He said that arrangement deprived both the federal and the state governments of the maximum revenue derivable from the resources.