The House of Representatives has ordered the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigerian Postal Service to stop the attacks against each other in the media.
Both agencies have been on social and traditional media in a feud over which of them is entitled to collect postage or adhesive stamp duties. In the past few weeks, there has been a media war between the
FIRS and NIPOST.
The enactment of the Finance Act 2019 is the bone of contention between the two government agencies since last year.
The Act amended the provisions of Section 4 subsection 1 of the Stamp Duty Act (as amended) and recognizes the FIRS as the only competent authority to impose, charge and collect Stamp Duties on dutiable instruments.
NIPOST insists that the right to print, mint, produce, retail, and provide postage adhesive stamp resides with it.
The agency insists taking away its age-long responsibility is killing NIPOST and rendering its workers jobless.
On many occasions since the enactment of that law last year, NIPOST workers’ unions had taken to the streets, protesting to the National Assembly and office of the Minister of Finance.
The media war has now gotten to the National Assembly and the House of Representatives Committee on Finance is intervening.
Both agencies have tabled their cases before the legislators, including the controversy surrounding the movement of the N58 billion in the NIPOST Stamp Duty Account to the Federation Account
