Nigerians from diverse walks of life have shared their views against the background of just introduced 0.5% cybersecurity levy by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
To Uche Uwaleke, a professor of Finance and Capital Market, cybersecurity levy is ill-timed, carries the downside risk of discouraging financial inclusion, thus advising the circular be withdraw forthwith.
“I think the cybersecurity levy is ill-timed, coming at a time when the CBN is concerned about the high rate of financial exclusion and the increasing rate of currency circulating outside the banks.
‘It carries the downside risk of discouraging financial intermediation as well as complicating the transmission of monetary policy with more people shunning the banks due to high charges. The end result is that it makes difficult effort by the CBN to tame inflation.”
“So, I think the circular should be withdrawn especially against the backdrop of assurances by the government that its plan to increase revenue would not include introducing new taxes or increasing tax rates.
To this end, the government should suspend the policy while getting set to implement the recommendations of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms whose mandate includes streamlining multiple taxes and levies currently inhibiting the growth of businesses in Nigeria.
Reacting to the CBN Cybersecurity levy, Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe, the lead faculty at the Tekedia Institute, tweeted:
“Nigeria does not need this playbook. What we need is GROW the economy so that corporate taxes can take care of these auxiliary fees. America, waived online sales taxes for more than a decade to grow the economies like; Amazon ascend, all the lost taxes would be made up.
“Taking 0.5% is a lot of money, and it makes the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) the most investable fintech in Nigeria if is for investment.
However, to Emmanuel Odunyemi, who works with Cybersecurity Consulting firm said,
“I think it’s a welcome development. Mind you, there are many transactions that are exempted. I see no issues if we want to have a National Cybersecurity Fund. Although, I have not taken my time to read the 2024 Cybersecurity Act.
“Every year, commercial banks and some Payment service platforms have their Cybersecurity budgets running in hundreds of millions, some in billions under strict compliance to the CBN IT security guideline.
“Despite the huge budget, many still experience data breaches and several cases of frauds. If the govt is now willing to harmonize the efforts and tackle Cyber-attacks from a consolidated fund, why should we have issues with that? On a transfer of 10k, u will be charged just 50 Naira. Should that be an issue?
I think this is for our own good. The threat landscape is getting wider day by day and it shouldn’t be left to the private sectors alone to fight.
Deina Mayaki, an entrepreneur, aired her view her official LinkedIn page, noted that there seems not to be correlation in the apex bank position about the volume of excess cash in circulation and the various charges the federal government is bringing on board.
“Yesterday a report indicated that the Vol [sic: volume] of cash outside the banks has reached its all-time high of 3.8 trillion. I thought we were driving a cashless economy.
“We are still frustrating the digital economy by increasing levies. The bank takes transaction charges, maintenance fees, stamp duty, SMS charges, VAT and now cybersecurity levy.
“Why should we pay a bank to secure our fund? What’s the incentive? Is this some sort of insurance that guarantees money back after the theft?
We can’t drive financial inclusion like this. How do we convince the unbanked that this isn’t a money ripping process?
A business still pays income tax after this. What level of extortion is this?, she queried.
Yet, Mark Essien, the founder and CEO of Hotels.ng, tweeted: “The 0.005 tax imposed by the NSA in Nigeria will be fatal for retailers. If you sell goods worth N5billion, you may make profit of N50m. But you pay NSA N25m monthly, which is 50% of your profit.
“There is no cap to this fee.
“This is a terribly business unfriendly move”.
On which divide are you?
