Speeches

Christmas Eve Party Of Island Club/Yoruba Tennis Club

Dec 24, 2011 - The privilege to speak at this year's annual dinner provides an opportunity for me to thank you all personally and on behalf of my Party, the Action Congress of Nigeria for your overwhelming support at the last general elections and the local Government elections for our candidates.

For those who were opposed to us, I also thank you. Your opposition enriched the democratic process by providing an alternative and a choice. It challenged us to prove that we were the better Party and I believe the results of the election and the progress being made in our State has vindicated us.

As the year comes to an end, it provides an opportunity for deep reflection and stock taking. It calls us to ask what we can do better, so that we can all be bigger beneficiaries of this commonwealth.

The issues I seek to address tonight relate to our values and our beliefs, our attitudes and the choices we have made and those we may be contemplating.

I believe that we must accept that we can all do a lot better about the place we call home than we have done today.

I make these observations in the light of recent 'developments and responses to policies that we are enunciating to make life better.

Perhaps we should cast our mind back to the beginning when my predecessor, Governor Tinubu, started this journey in 1999, the annual budget of Lagos State was N17.662b. This year, the budget estimates have increased to =N490.605b which is about 2,778% increase.

In spite of this large fiscal spending, the demands still exceed the available resources.

Let us pause to imagine what life will be if we had kept to a budget of N17b since 1999. There will certainly be a lot more that will have been left undone.

But by being courageous, creative and far sighted, and through collective sacrifice by payment of taxes, we are seeing traffic lights, street lights, police vehicles, street sweepers, new roads, bridges, ferries, rail construction, new schools, hospitals and so many more.

How else could we have provided these without collective contribution?

Rivers State with a population for less than our 18 million people, with 13% Derivation from oil has a budget of N427 billion for year, 2012.

Without the benefit of derivation, I think your Government in Lagos deserves not only support which many of you have given but also commendation for having the audacity to dream big and find a fair and legitimate way to get everybody to contribute by paying taxes so that the burden is shared by many and not borne by a few.

When I announced that we will be enforcing the collection of Withholding Taxes on dividends, rents, payment for contracts and other heads of income that are subject to Withholding Tax, a section of the media reported that I was on a collision course with a section of our society.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

The question I asked is whether I had done or said something wrong? Those who know will accept that this is the law.

Withholding Tax is not a new tax. It is part of income tax. It is not double taxation. It means only that when your final assessment is done at the end of the tax year, what you have paid as Withholding Tax is deducted and if there is any balance due, that is all you will pay.

When I addressed a conference on Corporate Social Responsibility, and I said companies must first be just before they can be generous, the media reported that I demanded a probe of companies. The truth is that all I have' said are part of the many laws that our country has made. I was only doing my job and complying with the oath I swore before God and all of you, to defend the Constitution and every law made under it.

What is offensive in asking a company to spend money to ensure it does not pollute the environment and affect our health, instead of allowing it to first pollute our drinking water and source of fishing only to turn around and say that it is donating a borehole to us with all the benefit of publicity as if it has done us a favor.

Only companies who have enthroned a proper culture of corporate governance, earned their money legitimately, and have paid all their taxes can truly be said to be socially responsible.

This is the truth. I will not stop saying it. It is the only way I know. It may not be popular to do so, but I choose change and a better quality of life for my people, for my State and for my country far above any popularity that keeping silent will bring.

We have shied away for too long from confronting the truth that we have suffered more than we need to,

I do not think that we lack the ability to do what is right or to change things that we do not accept. What I think is lacking is the will to do so.

In all the instances that we have found the will, we have successfully overcome our challenges. At this most compelling of times, may the will to alter things that we do not accept not depart from us.

Merry Xmas and a prosperous New Year.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State