An Executive bill was brought to the National Assembly seeking the amendment of the Nigerian tax and fiscal law scaled second reading at the upper chamber on Wednesday.
However, some Senators did not agree with the fact that the details of the bill was kept out of reading. The bill seeks among others, to raise the current Value Added Tax from five per cent to 7.5 per cent.
The lawmakers said the absence of the bill details would not enable them to make the appropriate decision in relation to the bill.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, however insisted that the bill be discussed without the details made available to senators.
Senators Yaroe Binus (Adamawa South) and Betty Apiafi (Rivers West) separately raised points of order, drawing the attention of the President of the Senate to the issue.
However, Lawan did not see reason as he ruled both senators out of order and maintained that the details of the bill would only be made available at the committee level.
Lawan said, “To handle that, we have already asked that our secretariat distributes all the Acts that we want to amend and I want to urge the committee to work very assiduously.
“This should not be compromised at all. Our colleagues who raised the issue did so because they wanted to contribute.
“I think what we have done is still within our tradition and our convention of debating the general principles.
“The issue of revenue in Nigeria today is the major issue affecting our economy.
“The economy of this country like most developing economies depends on public expenditure and until we are able to get it, collate them efficiently and effectively we will not be able to fund public expenditure well
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“This bill will help in generating and collecting this kind of revenue.”