BEVERLY HILLS, January 28, (THEWILL) – The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, ACCI, has disclosed that for online businesses to be taken seriously in the country, they will need to formalize their business by making the public more aware of their financial flows, particularly by appropriately paying to the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS.
President of the Chamber, Mr. Tony Ejinkonye stated this on Wednesday at a news conference in Abuja to unveil the winners of the 2016 excellence award in business organized to celebrate outstanding Corporate Organisations which had contributed to the growth of the national economy in spite of its downturn occasioned by drastic drop in the crude oil price.
According to him, “If a big company that is based inside Wuse market here records a lot of transactions without being formalized, regrettably, it cannot be captured into the system. If you do a big business and you make a lot of turn over without paying adequate taxes through the FIRS, you are shut out as well.
“Through the FIRS, we can actually determine how much money you pay as taxes. If you make up to a N100m turn over and at the end of the day go to the FIRS and pay a tax of N100,000 and then this other company got only a N4m business but records up to N200,000 FIRS verification, that’s only what we are going to capture.
“Online business, we understand, is very vibrant now but then it is only when they formalize by filing tax returns and publicize their dealings that they can meet these parameters. I don’t know what the FIRS has done to get online businesses into the tax net but immediately they get into the tax net, that is when organizations like us can determine what they do and the impact they have on the Nigerian economy. If we are going to give them an award for excellence, it has to be based on something everyone can see or determine.”
The ACCI Chairman explained that the winners will formally receive their awards at a dinner slated for the 24th of February 2016 at the Sheraton hotels, Abuja, where a keynote address will be delivered by a former World Bank Vice President and one-time Minister for Solid Minerals, Dr Mrs Obiageli Ezekwesili.
On why the activist former minister was chosen to deliver the keynote address at the event, Ejinkonye explained that it was because of the Chamber’s desire to create independence for the excellence award and make it have its own integrity and prestige.
According to him, “We do not want the keynote speaker to be somebody who cannot be made to speak what we want to hear. If she on that demolishes whatever aspiration that the Abuja Chamber may have, that is not our concern. But the main aim is that the speaker stands on his or her own.
“Her opinion should be seen as one expressed by herself and not necessarily the opinion of the chamber. She may decide to criticize some of the guests or awardees on that day but we as human being should be able to learn how to take criticisms. Criticisms actually make us perform better. We at Abuja Chamber of Commerce will on that day not expect everybody to praise us. If you criticize us on that day, we will take it.
“Anything she says on that day that may aggrieve certain people, it is purely based on her personal opinion,” he added.
The categories of the “excellence awards” winners are as follows:
Outstanding company of the year (commerce)
Winner – Olam Nigeria Limited
Outstanding company of the year (industry)
Winner – Dangote Cement
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Winner – The Nigeria LNG Limited
Investor of the Year
Winner – Helios Investment Partners and the Vitol Group
The most innovative Business Idea
Winner – Airtel Nigeria’s Recharge and Hit-A-Million Promo
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