TheCable

The Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS), says it is working towards providing more point of sales (POS) terminals in all public hospitals across the state to ease payments for services.

Ziad Abubakar, executive chairman, KADIRS, spoke in a statement on Saturday, addressing citizen’s complaints that some public hospitals are insisting on cash payments for services rendered.

Abubakar said the state has already abolished cash payments.

He also urged the management of all public hospitals to accept electronic transfers for all payments, in order to mitigate the present challenge.

“Even before the currency swap, the 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 said.

“The currency swap of the federal government has brought a lot of challenges to all sectors of the economy and the country at large.

“Although the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has given a ten-day extension for citizens to change their old currencies to the new banknotes, 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 the 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, businessmen, and women. “

Abubakar, however, added that despite the delay, electronic cash transfer remains the only option of payment in public hospitals, going by the tax codification law and the present realities.