Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) is working towards providing more Point of Sales (POS) terminals in all public hospitals across the state in order to ease payments of revenue.

Executive Chairman of KADIRS, Dr. Ziad Abubakar, in a statement, advised the management of all public hospitals to accept electronic transfers for all payments, in order to mitigate the present challenge.

Dr. Abubakar, who was reacting to complaints that personnel of some public hospitals insist on cash payments for services rendered, noted that Kaduna State has already abolished cash payments.

“Even before the currency swap, Kaduna State Government had abolished and prohibited cash payments, pursuant to Section 51 of Kaduna State Tax Codification and Consolidation Law, 2020. So, there is no justification for public hospitals to reject electronic cash transfers,” he argued.

The Executive Chairman acknowledged that “the currency swap of the federal government has brought a lot of challenges to all sector of the economy and the country at large.”

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“Although, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has given a 10-day extension for citizens to change their old currencies to the new bank notes, there are still long queues at Banking Halls and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), as customers wait to get new naira notes.

“For this reason, the most popular option for business transactions, buying and selling remains electronic cash transfer. However, this comes with its own peculiar challenge of downtime in network which delays transactions.

“In view of the above, information reaching the Service indicates that some public hospitals do not accept cash transfers for sundry payments, as officials insist on cash payments. This slight delay discourages the use of the payment option amongst some service providers, agents, vendors and business men and women,” he added.

Dr. Abubakar, however, said that in spite of the delay, electronic cash transfer remains the only option of payment in public hospitals, going by the Tax Codification Law and the present realities.

The Star