BY GABRIEL ENOGHOLASE

BENIN—EDO State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has promised to review what it described as, “the obnoxious tax policies” of the All Progressives Congress, APC-led government in the state with a view to giving same a human face, if elected into office.

It also promised that a PDP government in the state will re-introduce bursary awards and scholarships to deserving students from the state.

State chairman of the party, Chief Dan Orbih, made the pledge at rallies in Ekpoma and Irrua in Edo Central senatorial district, yesterday, to welcome defectors from the APC into PDP.

Thousands of former APC members defected from the party to PDP during the rallies in both towns.

He said that a PDP government in the state will create conducive atmosphere for motor-cycle operators, popularly known as Okada riders, to operate in all parts of the state to save them from harassment and intimidation from the various tax agencies put in place by the current government.

He said: “The current administration in the state has subjected our market women, taxi drivers, Okada riders, teachers and workers to various forms of obnoxious and oppressive tax policies. Our market women, taxi and bus drivers are being humiliated daily and forced to pay excess levies and taxes daily. We will review this once we take over the reins of government in the state.

“I appeal to workers, teachers and market women and indeed all the oppressed people of Edo State, to be patient as their problems would be over very soon.”

Orbih, who praised former governor of the defunct Bendel State, late Prof. Ambrose Alli, for his achievement in the field of education, lamented that the current administration in the state could not even achieve a quarter of what the late governor did in four years, saying that in their six years in office, “they only painted and re-roofed existing school buildings without constructing a single block of classroom.”