Revenue Collection By Multiple Agencies Cause Of Funds Leakage – FIRS

The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Zach Adedeji, says the collection of revenue by multiple government agencies is a major cause of the leakage of funds.

Mr. Adedeji who stated this when he appeared before the House of Representatives
for budget defence explained that the duty should be the sole responsibility of the Service to ensure greater accountability in the system.

He urged other over 60 revenue collection agencies of government to focus on their various core mandates and advocated a single-window method of tax collection to make the process less cumbersome and check the loss of government funds.

According to him, one of the challenges facing this was the lack of verifiable data in the country and that a law will be sent to the National Assembly to ensure all Nigerians have one single number of identification.

He explained that the Service was given the mandate to collect the sum of N10 trillion based on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) that was passed in 2023 which was reviewed upward to N11 trillion during the year.

Adedeji said the Service was able to deliver N12.3 trillion as the revenue collected for the year 2023 which was 11 percent above the target set by the government.

The FIRS Boss said the mandate of the Service for 2024 through the MTEF is to collect N19 trillion which is an additional N7 trillion compared to what was collected in 2023.

He said the bulk of it is coming from positive projections from oil and gas revenue.

The FIRS boss however said if this ambitious target of N19 trillion is to be met there is need to restructure the service to be more focused.

Chairman of the Finance Committee, James Faleke, queried if the proposed single window revenue would mean whether Customs, NIMASA, NPA and all the major revenue collectors would be subject to the FIRS or the Service would be collecting revenue on their behalf.

Adedeji said these agencies should rather concentrate on their primary mandates and leave the revenue collection to the FIRS.

Chairman of the Committee, Faleke lauded the initiative to ensure payments are made directly to the contractors and not the MDAs.

He expressed the commitment of the Committee to ensure that leakages are addressed and revenue increased to make life better for the ordinary Nigerian.

Oduyemi Odumade, Edited By Grace Namiji