Yuletide: Reps Call On FG To Grant Tax Waivers Amid Airfare Hikes

The House of Representatives on Thursday asked the Federal Government to grant immediate tax waivers to airlines in a bid to reduce flight fares during the Yuletide season.

Lawmakers also called for a 50 percent reduction in auxiliary charges within the aviation industry.

The resolution came after a debate on the soaring cost of flight fares. However, the lawmakers rejected proposals to subsidize airline tickets.

On Tuesday, the Senate summoned the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, and other stakeholders over rising flight tickets.

Senator Buhari Abdulfatai from Oyo State, who led the debate, told lawmakers that Nigerians have been complaining about the rising cost of domestic flight tickets in recent months.

Abdulfatai disclosed that a one-way ticket from Abuja to Lagos now costs between N400,000 and N600,000, an amount many citizens can no longer afford.

“We need to invite stakeholders of our airline agencies to interact and interrogate the issues. Immediate steps must be taken before the festive period,” he said during plenary.

Other lawmakers, including Senator Adamu Aliero, echoed a similar sentiment.

Aliero described the fare increase as unacceptable, while Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi condemned what he tagged an unheard-of 400 percent increment.

READ ALSO: Senate Summons Aviation Minister Over Surging Airfares

Meanwhile, the Executive Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, Obiorah Okonkwo, has called on the National Assembly to intervene to help reduce the multiple taxation facing the sector.

Okonkwo, who spoke during the inauguration of commercial operations at the Ekiti Agro-Allied International Airport on Wednesday, attributed the cost of tickets to multiple taxes imposed on airlines.

“The other thing is to help us pray that with the help of the national assembly, which the leader is already working on, and the rest of his colleagues, that the government will be able to look into multiple taxation that are plaguing the airline industry,” he said at the event.

“We are taxed about 18 taxes on one single ticket. So any ticket you buy, maybe 70 percent of them go to other government agencies. If the national assembly helps us reduce these things, which are legislative in nature, we will be able to reduce the cost of the ticket so that it should be affordable to all.”