Factional governorship candidate of Labour Party, Lagos state, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has said the core idea behind his run is to imbibe transparency and accountability into the state finances and system of governance.
Rhodes-Vivour made this known on Monday during an interview on The Morning Show of Arise TV.
The factional Labour Party candidate, who expressed concern that Lagos State prides itself in generating so much money from the people, said that it should go with a social contract.
He said, “There should be a direct link between the taxes that you are paying and the value that you are getting from the state.
“We cannot be in a situation where people are being taxed in multiple ways, but there’s no direct benefit to yourself as a resident of Lagos state,” he said.
He added that he also wants to ensure that the transportation system, health and the education sector in Lagos state are working efficiently.
The candidate stressed that it is about time to move from development based on increasing taxes to development based on human capacity development, infrastructure development and social development.
“We have a situation where so much funds are being raised but unaccounted for. Nobody can really say this is what this money is being used for.
Rhodes-Vivour, who argued that Lagos state still operates in an opaque system in relation to finances, said, “we believe that the moment we can be transparent and accountable to the people and give them direct incentives for why they should pay taxes we can then widen the tax net as well.
“Because there’s no reason you will find that in the formal sector people are constantly paying high levels of tax but they don’t have any direct benefit, talking about money that is generated by the Babaloja and Iyalojas and the over 120 billion naira generated by the NURTW in a year,” he added.
Rhodes-Vivour said he wants a Lagos state that works for everybody, where local governments are self-sustaining, adding that “it reduces the amount of loads in relation to our transportation sector. We want a situation where development is even across the state.” (Vanguard)