The Chairman of Ethiope East Local Government in Delta State, Hon. Victor Ofobrukueta has said that his administration is yet to authorise the issuance of demand notice to Point of Sale (POS) operators in the area.
Speaking with NewsNet Nigeria Hon. Ofobrukueta said there was no time and no record at the Council that he approved the issuance of demand notice on POS operation in the local government area as part of effort by the Council “to have a proper and approved P. O. S. operators in the Local Government Area” as contained in the notice signed by one Hon. Tega Enakerakpo, with the designation, Chairman, P. O. S. Central Sub-Revenue Committee, Ethiope East Local Government.
The Ethiope East Council boss said that the demand notice which is being circulated on social media platforms and has been a subject of mixed reactions does not have the backing of the Council.
The former Leader of Ethiope East Legislative Arm said, “No, no, it was not. I did not approve for anybody to go serve demand notice on POS operators.
“I am planning an economic summit where I will engage critical stakeholders in the local government area because our local government is extremely poor apart from federal allocation, we don’t get any IGR from the local government area.
“If not for the magnanimity of the state governor, we cannot even pay salaries of staff.”
Ofobrukueta insisted that even though the notice appears to have been issued with the Council’s letterhead paper, he never gave approval for it suggesting that it may have been forged.
He also faulted the signing of the notice by the said chairman of the committee, who is supposed to be a politician instead of the statutory signing of such notices by the secretary of the committee.
As of the time of filing this report, demand notice on POS operations in Udu Local Government was sighted by this medium.
The major difference between both is that the POS annual operational levy was fixed at Five Thousand Naira (N5, 000.00) only in Ethiope East while that of Udu was pegged at Two Thousand Naira (N2,000.00) as monthly revenue to the Council from POS operators.
Efforts to reach the Chairman of Udu Local Government, Chief Jite Brown was unsuccessful as calls put across to his MTN line were not answered nor did he call back.
Ethiope East and Udu Local Government Areas appears for now in Delta State to be areas where ‘boys’ who supposedly played different roles during elections for the political party in power, have seen the thriving and proliferating business of POS as an avenue for revenue generation for their ’empowerment’.
