Tax reforms: Senate, AGF yet to meet for review

The Senate special committee liaising with the Federal Government on the controversial tax reform bills and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, have yet to meet for the review of the bills, findings by Sunday PUNCH have revealed.

Two weeks ago, the Senate constituted a committee to meet with the AGF following President Bola Tinubu’s directive that the executive should meet with lawmakers to finetune grey areas in the bills.

The Senate committee was billed to meet with the AGF last week as announced by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, but Sunday PUNCH gathered that the meeting didn’t hold.

It was learnt that the AGF, who was out of the country, allegedly told the lawmakers that he had yet to receive an official invite from the Senate.

“I have only seen the invite on the pages of newspaper and TV screens, no formal invite has been sent to my office,” the AGF was said to have told one of the lawmakers who called him last week, according to a source in the Red Chamber.

The committee was expected to submit its findings and recommendations before the end of the year.

President Tinubu had on December 3 directed the executive to liaise with the legislative arm of government.

However, two weeks later, the Senate has yet to secure a meeting with the AGF.

A member of the committee also revealed to our correspondent that they planned to sum up things in two weeks.

The source further noted that the committee intended to finish its meeting and deliberations in two weeks and report back to the Senate once they were done.

When contacted, the chairman of the committee, Abba Moro, said the panel still had time for the task.

He said, “Was a deadline given? Even if we have, we have just exhausted one week. We still have one more week.”