26th April, 2012
Lagos State Pools Agents Association, LASPAA, has said that stiffer penalty should be given to people who operate contrary to the new policy released by the state government.
Pools agents arrested by the Joint Task Force is fined N50,000, while the agent’s shop is locked. But even with this punishment, the flagrant abuse of the government policy has not stopped.
President of the agents association, Major Sammy Ogunyebo (retd) wants the fine to be increased to N500,000 for agents and N1 million for pools promoters.
“If we really want to stop the problem of high commission to stakers, stiffer penalty must be visited on offenders. We also want the government to lock the shop of any agent arrested for at least six weeks,” he said.
The agents’ president said that promoters have not been sincere about the agreement they entered into in the past, hence the need for the Office of the Special Assistant on Taxation and Revenue to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola to warned them, so that the expected sanity all stakeholders in Lagos pools business are looking forward to will be achieved.
“We want the state government to take its supervisory role in the business very serious. The position of the agents association is that we want three square meals on the table of our members; and to achieve, there should be a level playing ground for everybody to operate. We want government to enforce the new policy now,” he said.