Nigerians have criticised some taxes and levies introduced by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) for being unreasonable.
The FCTA, through the Health Services and Environment Secretariat, sent a demand notice to premises within Abuja, directing them to comply with new statutory environmental health requirements or pay fines.
According to the notice in circulation, FCT residents are to pay for professional Inspection Report, Certificate of Fitness for Habitation, Certificate of Fitness for Use or Continued Use, 2025 Occupational Health Audit, Noise Pollution Assessment or Noise Compliance Certificate and 2025 Food Handling Permit.
At the sight of these new levies, Nigerians have taken to social media platforms to call out the government.
With Nigeria about to implement a new tax system in January 2026, Attah Akor, who works in the Web3 space, believes the new levies are an example of the Nigerian government’s tendency to continue taxing a country suffering from a high unemployment rate.
“Don’t provide people with jobs but tax their income. Don’t provide people with constant electricity but tax the source of electricity they provided for themselves for pollution. I never see this kind thing for my life,” Akor said.
‘UNABLE TO PROVIDE POWER, YET TO TAX GENERATOR’
According to a 2022 data by Statista, globally, Nigeria has the highest number of people without access to electricity.
By 2023, only a little more than 61 per cent of Nigerians had access to electricity. That, the report stated, was because the areas without power were underserved, not because they were unwilling to take power. And subsequently, some of these communities have had to seek alternative sources.
In light of this, some stated that it would be irresponsible for a government which has failed to provide electricity for its people to be levying them for using generator sets.
“When you generate your own power, you still pay the government for noise pollution. If they government had provided power for business, should this matter at all in the first place?” ICT expert Chikeluba Dominique asked rhetorically.
“They will collect electricity bill from you, you will see no light for your business, you will use your supposed savings to buy fuel to power your generator ,they will come for you to pay pollution tax. Nigerians brace up,” another person commented.
“You won’t give people power, you banned solar importation, now you are taxing businesses for Generator – Noise pollution tax?” a web developer asked.
CONSEQUENTIAL FOR ABUJA’S EASE OF DOING BUSINESS
In the latest ease-of-doing business report by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), the Federal Capital Territory ranked fourth with 44.5 out of a possible 73, representing a 61 per cent score.
But according to the same report, PEBEC mentioned ‘5 High-Impact Interventions for Quick Implementation’, and one of them was ‘Power Reliability for State Production Clusters’.
“Use state regulatory tools to improve supply for industrial clusters; expand Band A access; scale embedded generation; accelerate connections,” the recommendation read in part.
But with this newly introduced levy for generation users, business owners may be discouraged from using them to supply power, and consequently lead to a drop in the business friendliness of the state.
Readily, despite PEBEC’s data, a small chops seller says, “Abuja is not a good place to do business at all.”
