The Federal Government through the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola has decided to grant Aliko Dangote a 10-year tax holiday in exchange for the construction a 35 kilometer long highway.
Dangote Group is to rebuild using concrete, and will be getting a recompense in the form of 10-year tax holiday.
Fashola, said this at the Business Day Road Construction Seminar in Lagos, that the contract for the road network comprising Creek Road, Liverpool Road, Marine Beach all the way to Mile 2, Oshodi, Oworonshoki, to the Lagos end of the Toll Gate on the Ibadan Expressway was signed with the Dangote Group on September 12, 2017.
Fashola said to encourage the Dangote Group to embark on the project which the government is still waiting for designs; the government had approved an upward review of a tax incentive to the group to 10 years.
But the move has been greeted with criticism.
Olaniyan Ishola, a PDP chieftain in Ibadan, Oyo state said the move by the government encourages the continuation of the monopoly of business on Nigerians and is also part of Buhari’s strategy to empower the Hausa-Fulani clan over other tribes of the country.
“Dangote has delved into all business and crashed all competitors; the federal government is now further helping him by giving him tax holiday. This is ridiculous and highly unthinkable and a big slap on Nigerians.”
Lagosians have because of this, suffered untold hardship due to the unexpected gridlocks cause by trucks and tankers in Apapa- Maryland road.
Unconfirmed speculations claimed that the tanker drivers are protesting the move of government to give Dangote the tax holiday.