NIPOST launches N50 stamp, projects N60bn revenue

The Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) has launched a new N50 denomination revenue stamp, projecting remittance of yearly revenue of more than N60 billion to the federal government.

Speaking at the launch of the revenue stamp on Tuesday in Abuja, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, said the federal government has restored to NIPOST the legal responsibility to collect stamp duty in place of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

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“NIPOST has been recognised as a government agency with statutory and historical authority to be the producer of stamps and recognised for collection of stamp duties for validation of financial transactions in the country,” Pantami said.

He said with the signing into law of the Amended Finance Act, 2020 by President Muhammad Buhari, NIPOST is back to its legal position of administration of postal stamps and collection of stamp duty.

He called on NIPOST staff to increase their revenue generation drive in order to improve the country’s economy.

The NIPOST board chairman, Barrister Maimuna Yaya Abubakar, said the launch of the new revenue stamp had shown that the agency was finally free from all forms of constraints to execute its mandate of stamp duty collection.

“There is no need to overstate the obvious which is that NIPOST stamps have been unquestionably used since time immemorial as the only instrument for denoting duty”, she said.

The Post Master General of NIPOST, Dr Ismail Adewusi said the agency would rev up its revenue generation drive as the use of stamps is not limited to the payment of postal services alone.

“Stamps also serve as objects of visual communication and as a dependable recorder of events for posterity.

“Through stamps, NIPOST has documented Nigeria’s history, educating and preserving our national heritage among others.”