The Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has issued a demand notice to businesses within the council’s jurisdiction, requiring them to pay a community levy of N40,000 for the year. The notice, dated August 19, 2024, warns that businesses failing to comply will face severe penalties, including the sealing off of their premises.<\/p>\n
The demand notice, seen by an Abuja City Journal reporter on Tuesday, has sparked significant concern among local business owners. The notice cites provisions under Section 7 and the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), as well as other relevant local government regulations in the FCT, as the legal basis for the levy.<\/p>\n
Aisha Shuaibu, a business owner who posted the notice on X (formerly Twitter), expressed frustration and disbelief at the sudden imposition of the levy. In her post, Shuaibu, who has operated her business for nearly nine years, stated that this is the first time she has encountered such a demand. She accused the council of inventing arbitrary charges to “aggressively tax and inconvenience small businesses.”<\/p>\n
Shuaibu\u2019s post read: “Another day, another demand notice from AMAC to pay for something I\u2019ve never heard of in my nearly 9 years of operating my business. At this point, they are just inventing random bills to aggressively tax and inconvenience small businesses. I am calling on all leadership behind AMAC, the Executive Chairman, the Senate & Reps members, the Management Board, and whoever else is responsible for this. Enough is enough! Leave SMEs alone!”<\/p>\n
The letter instructs businesses to make the payment to a specified account number provided by the council. It also details the consequences for non-compliance, including late payment fines and potential confiscation of valuable items or sealing off of the business premises. The notice emphasizes that failure to comply without a valid reason will lead to these punitive measures.<\/p>\n
In response to the notice, local business owners are rallying for intervention from higher authorities. They argue that such sudden and unexplained financial burdens could be detrimental to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which are already struggling under various economic pressures.<\/p>\n
The leadership of AMAC has yet to respond to the mounting concerns from the business community. However, the new levy has prompted calls for a review of local government policies and greater transparency in the imposition of such fees. Many are urging the Chairman of AMAC, as well as members of the Senate and House of Representatives, to address the grievances of the business community and ensure fair and reasonable taxation practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has issued a demand notice to businesses within the council’s jurisdiction, requiring them to pay a community levy of N40,000 for the year. The notice, dated August 19, 2024, warns that businesses failing to comply will face severe penalties, including the sealing off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":44420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-44415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44432,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44415\/revisions\/44432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}