In 2017, the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation [NTDC] and other stakeholders in the tourism sector, called for the rejection of the then proposed `Tourism Bill` awaiting Presidential ascent that would also most likely suffer a third rejection, just the way the NTDC was rejected penultimate week.
They said that the proposed bill would render useless the various agencies saddled with the responsibility of contributing to tourism development.
The public hearing of the bill titled, “The NIHOTOUR Bill’’ sent to National Assembly (NASS) by the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism [NIHOTOUR], which was to hold on June 15, 2017.
The NTDC Director-General, Folorunsho Folarin-Coker, told News Agency of Nigeria [NAN] then, that NIHOTOUR would be going beyond the mandate for which it was established if the bill is passed into law by the NASS.
Folarin-Coker said that NIHOTOUR was established, principally, as a training institute for personnel and stakeholders in the tourism and hospitality industry.
“The bill will be giving NIHOTOUR the position of both a trainer and a regulator of everything relating to tourism; thereby disregarding the legality of other parastatal agencies’’, he said.
Folarin-Coker suggested that the country’s tertiary institutions should be allowed to establish departments that would be training personnel in tourism.
Also, Mr. Bankole Bernard, the National President, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies [NANTA], said then that NIHOTOUR had no statutory power to regulate tourism affairs in Nigeria, and should remain as a directorate under NTDC.
“This is a bill that cannot see the light of the day because NIHOTOUR has no capacity to regulate the huge tourism industry, which regrettably is true especially from the ‘shit holes’ it operates from across the country”, Bernard said.
Just like NIHOTOUR that its capacity and mandate has been questioned, the NTDC too has also arrogated several responsibilities to itself in the just rejected bill by President Mohammadu Buhari.
The President in his letter that conveyed his rejection of the NTDC Bill to the Senate outlined his reasons for withholding assent to the bills, which was read by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, at plenary on Wednesday May 8, 2019.
President Buhari said section 14[d], section 30[2d] of the Nigeria Tourism Development Authority [Repeal and re-enactment] bill contradicts section 4 [1-3] and paragraph 60 [d] of the second schedule of Nigeria’s Constitution.
“Section 30 of the bill proposing to levy a tourism fee on all inbound international travellers, a tourism levy on all outbound travellers and a tourism departure contribution fee of 1 per cent per hotel room rate.
“Such flat fee has been fixed by the authority and a corporate tourism development levy of 1 per cent to be charged on the revenue of banks, telecommunications and other corporate entities.
“This will be inimical to the growth of the tourism and hospitality industry in Nigeria and constitute an additional burden on the tourism business,” the letter reads.
However, to many in the tourism industry, the NTDC leadership went too far and blamed both the House of Representatives and the Senate Committees on Tourism and Culture that pushed these bills for not doing due diligent, and noted that the President rejection of the NTDC Bill as an embarrassment to the travel and tourism industry in Nigeria.
Many are of the opinion that the NTDC asking for it to be allowed to tax banks, telecommunications companies are exercise in futility and stupidity.
Responding to the bill, Chief Sam Alabi, former President, Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria [FTAN] and now Chairman FTAN Board of Trustees, said, “There is the need to ask why certain decisions are taken by a person or authority and that we are used to business as usual.
“Until we try to view things from the perspective of the decision makers, we would not appreciate the strength in it”.
According to him, the president has avoided imminent litigations that would herald the signing of some bills into law in view of their apparent contravention of the ground norm of the nation – the 1999 constitution.
Speaking as a lawyer, Alabi said the constitution has 3 legislative lists, namely:
Exclusive list – such as central bank, census, currency etc can only be validly legislated upon by the NASS. State are not permitted to do so; Concurrent Legislative list – such as agriculture, education among others of which both NASS and state House of Assembly are permitted to pass laws on it, but where there is a clash between laws passed by both levels, the Federal Laws supersede.
The last which is Residual list – items not mentioned under the exclusive and the concurrent. These are left for the state. Among these lists are tourism and allied business that are left to the state Governments to legislate on.
He stated further that it was in recognition of this constitutional provision, that the Supreme Court in 2013 invalidated NTDC or any federal government power to regulate tourism in the states.
Alabi noted that reading that NASS Passed bills regulating tourism vide NIHOTOUR and NTDC or the new name used, is a sheer waste of time.
Meanwhile, there were allegations that the leadership of NIHOTOUR that operates from rented and dilapidated accommodations including the Headquarters in Abuja, bribed with N90 millions for the National Assembly to push their bill that has been rejected twice before by the President.
Also alleged was that NTDC also bribed with N35 millions too in the cause of pushing its failed bill through the House of Representatives and the Senate respectively in the last two years.
On his part, Dr. Andy Ehanire, Director of Ogba Zoo, Benin City, Edo State, said, “Whereas some bills tend to define powers rather than cooperation”
Ehanire said, “I cannot readily recall the details of these bills, but I know I made strong objecting to the reconfiguration of the NTDC Board, in which a multiple representation by key legacy associations was reduced to just one FTAN, thus peopling it with bureaucratic ancillary services, therefore, making the board technically a lame”.
He concluded by saying that lobbying for powers through Bills has never been for professional advancements and benefits of stakeholders, but a road to impunity and plunder.
“A series of workshops to address policy dynamics are needed”, he concluded.
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