Secretary to the Ogun State Government, Barrister Taiwo Adeoluwa has charged students to educate their parents and guardians residing in the State but working in neighbouring States on the need to remit their taxes into the State Government coffers as stipulated by law. Barrister Adeoluwa threw this challenge this Thursday in his office in Abeokuta while hosting members of the Press Club of Dansol International School, Agidingbi, Lagos. Adeoluwa observed that over 30 percent of the workers in Lagos State lived in Ogun State but still pay their taxes into the coffers of Lagos State government, revealing that the two State governments were already putting heads together to reverse the trend in accordance with the residency law. “We are relying on everybody including you because I am sure some of your parents work in Lagos and live in Ogun State. When you get home, ask your parents, do you pay your taxes to the right quarters? We want you our young minds to help us educate the others that you pay tax where you reside because that is where you put pressure on resources and not where you work”, the SSG charged. The State scribe disclosed that the Government had invested more in education than infrastructural development, noting that its huge investments in education had started yielding positive as evident in the leap in enrolment of pupils in public schools and improved performance of students in examinations. Such efforts he said include tuition-free primary and secondary education, distribution of free text books and instructional materials, renovation of existing and building of model schools as well as up-to-date payment of WAEC fees and counterpart funding to allied agencies among others. While commending the students for their initiatives on Press Club membership, Barrister Adeoluwa charged them to embrace more purposeful extra-curricular activities capable of making them wholesome students now and useful adults later in life. Earlier, the Staff Adviser of the Press Club who led the students, Mr. Atobalo Oluwole commended the State Government for the various developmental programmes and policies it had embarked upon, observing that with the on-going infrastructural development efforts, Abeokuta, the State capital and other parts of the State had been transformed.
How many students even have a one on one relationship with their parents right about now? The government should find a way to do it themeselves