Imo NHA calls out IIRS chair, Livy-Oguike, for strangling hotel, hospitality industry
April 10, 2023425 views0 comments
The hotel and hospitality industry in Imo State is in ruins, investors and workers are in pain. The heavy yoke agents of the state government have placed upon this sector has made the once lively and investors’ delight sector now unattractive because the environment is not conducive anymore. If this sector finally collapses, Imo’s economy will come to ruins. In this interview, CHIMA CHUKWUNYERE, chairman, Nigerian Hotels Association (NHA) Imo chapter, and the managing director, Domino Paramount Hotel, tells Business A.M.’s SABY ELEMBA, the things that are leading to the death of this sector, accusing June Chiaka Levi-Oguike, chairman, Imo State Internal Revenue Service, of deliberately stifling the sector, unilaterally bending the agreements NHA reached with her predecessors in office, among other things, all of which are undermining the sector. Excerpts:
Stakeholders in the hotel and hospitality sector in Imo State complain bitterly about the unconducive environment to do business in the state. As the chairman of NHA, Imo Chapter, can we hear from you with respect to their complaints?
We have numerous challenges and if the government does not hear our cry, we are likely to see the end of the hospitality industry in Imo State. I don’t want to go back to what happened during the Covid-19 because it is on record that some of the hotels have not recovered. Some of the hotels that I know that had closed down have not been able to reopen since then, it has been difficult for them.
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I also know that immediately after the Covid-19, the issue of End-SARS came up. From End-SARS the issue of unknown gunmen hit the entire Southeast to the point that people were afraid to come to Imo. And not only being afraid, [but also], the level of insult dignitaries received on the road. If you were driving on the road from Onitsha to Owerri when you get to a checkpoint, regardless of who you are and what you are, you are expected to disembark and raise up your hands as if you are a criminal until you walk through a checkpoint, not everybody wants to go through that or receive such humiliation. So the issue of unknown gunmen is still there.
And the Southeast now experiences what we call sit-at-home on Mondays. This one is still in force coupled with the unknown gunmen and nothing has been done. And it is frustrating for the hotel people, the lodgers who are willing to travel on Mondays.
So you see a situation where people come here on Fridays and by Sundays they are already out of the town. Most people would have loved to stay. Most people who would have loved to come here on Sundays and do their businesses and to go back on Mondays, because of the sit-at-home they wouldn’t come again.
What impact does the issue of cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria have on the hotel and hospitality sector, more especially the Southeast region that is yet to recover from insecurity and other challenges?
While the hotel and hospitality sector in the Southeast is battling with so many problems, the cashless policy emerged. It has caused a lot of negative impacts on the sector. Only God knows what the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had in mind. The level of studies he did before he took that decision and deceived Nigerians to pay in their had earned money in an exchange for a new currency which just came and disappeared.
And while that was going on we had the elections and there were a lot of attacks, a lot of things that made people afraid. This made responsible men, and business men decide to stay at home for their own safety. Even now in the South Eastern part of the country, they are not sure of their safety based on the words from their mouths, like the kind of words that were released in Rwanda. So nobody wants to be a victim.
What is the most challenging factor you can see working against the progress and development of the hotel and hospitality sector in Imo State?
Now, having said all these things, the most deadly thing working against the sector in the state, is the issue of over taxation. Since I came to Owerri, every year the government will release what they call “Demand Notices”. And the pattern has been the association will sit down with the chairman of the Imo State Internal Revenue Service (IIRS) with the management team to agree on what is payable and what is not payable.
But for the fact that you are seeing a 10-storey building with 1000 rooms, it doesn’t mean that those rooms are all operational. There are quite a number of things working against the industry in the state.
The Imo State Internal Revenue Service has an interim executive chairman, a woman, June Chiaka Levi-Oguike. Can you tell us the relationship she has with the association?
Since she came, contrary to what His Excellency, Senator Hope Uzodinma, said to me personally in his office, the day he invited me, after we threatened to shut down our hotels in December last year, [when] he promised that he would call for a round table discussion. He said it with his mouth that the hotel industry is the only industry he has in Imo and he would not live to see anything happen to it.
And what we are now seeing is an opposite of the promise he made. And we don’t believe that His Excellency is aware of what the interim chairman of IIRS is doing. The woman has refused to see any of us. No member of the association can claim that he has seen the woman. I have made desperate efforts to see her. They will tell me that the woman is not interested, and it is either you go and pay or they seal your hotel. And the hotels that paid were also sealed.
And the most annoying part of it is that hotels that were sealed took the evidence of payment and they said that since the court has ruled, you have to abide by that. But she wrongfully took hotels to court, got court orders and sealed their hotels after they had fulfilled all the obligations. Yet they are not prepared to listen to anybody.
And now, to crown it all, she said that she has nullified every previous arrangement and agreements we had with the people that were there before her.
I don’t know how a woman in authority, an Imolite for that matter, would come into that office and now decide to bend the law few months to the end of the year. This arrangement started January, 2022, and every arrangement was made and endorsed and the people, our members, were complying and suddenly she came in October 2022. Just two weeks after she took over, she said all previous arrangements were nullified.
Now what do you envisage should be the impact on the hotels in Owerri?
If the government of the day doesn’t intervene, you will wake one morning only to hear that the entire hotels in Imo State have collapsed. And you know that I have said it before that the hotels now are either on lease or outright sale. If I see anybody that can come to me for a good offer to lease my hotel, and run my hotel, I will give it up.
I am prepared to lease it for 5 or 10 years to avoid multiple taxation and confrontation with the government.
While others have leased their hotels some have put theirs for outright sale.
Why are they taking this step?
Because the atmosphere is no longer conducive for this business in Imo State. The government is not doing anything to attract people to Imo State and they are not encouraging the industry .
The government does not care for the number of the people the hotels have employed. When hotels are sealed for weeks that means within this period the workers employed will not be paid. Just imagine the agony of the people because of the salary that they are not paid. Just imagine what they would have to pass through – house rent, school fees, taking care of their families, etc
So now, the woman is out to undo us with double taxation, with arbitrary increases. Just imagine this time and season somebody is telling you to pay for a TV licence and radio licence. That was an edict made by the military before when people were paying one naira, two naira and now somebody is telling you to pay N50,000 and N70,000.00
So we are watching. As I told you, it is only a tree that you will say that by tomorrow I am going to cut you and the tree will be there.
What is the next line of action for the investors in this sector to ensure they remain in business?
We are human beings doing business. And we have been meeting, looking at options to resist so that the woman doesn’t cause the total collapse of this industry.
Around November last year, a new commissioner for tourism by name, Jerry Egemba, a lawyer, came in. Is he aware of these things?
Yes, he is aware. We have been meeting, and we have complained bitterly and he said that he would go and have a meeting with the woman and up till today nothing positive has come out of it.
But as I said, we are brainstorming on how to defend these investments in Imo State. The association may meet with eateries to shut down in Owerri, so that the governor will hear; if he is in Abuja, he will hear it.