David Okoh Abuja
The House of Representatives on Wednesday grilled the Federal Inland Revenue Service FIRS, Nigeria Ports Authority NPA and the National Lottery Regulatory Commission NLRC over these key agencies dwindling revenue accruing to the federation account.
The House also rattled the management of these three agencies over their 2019, 2020 and 2021 budget performances and demanded the details of their expenditure profiles for the three years viz:2019, 2020 and 2021.
Chairman of the House Committee on Finance Hon.Abiodun Faleke and other committee members had scrutinized the the revenue profiles of these agencies at an interactive meeting on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework MTEF and the Fiscal Strategies Paper FSP at the National Assembly.
The lawmakers while probing the Nigeria Communications Commission NCC and the FIRS had demanded the details of their capital projects executed in the last three years item by item.
On the revenue profile of the FIRS, the lawmakers noted that the agency’s documents had shown that it had racked in N6.4billion from many sources including personnel income tax, company tax and electronic transfer levy among others.
They queried why there was a decrease of 33. 8% from the revenue profile of the agency in 2021 from the figure of N4. 1 projected in the agency’s budget saying that they should surpass the revenue target.
Responding to the issues raised by the House Committee, the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service FIRS Mr Mohammed Nami said that the total sum of revenue generated in 2021 is N10.1 trillion.
He further said that the agency had deployed technology is its revenue drives and had remitted a whopping N7 trillion into the federation account as Value Added Tax VAT.
He added that N2.05 trillion out of the total sum of this tax is for the federal government while the thirty -six states and the local government councils are legally entitled to share the balance.
He also hinted that the agency’s revenue drives had been moving seamlessly as there was an increase of N3.4 million from N1. 5 million last year from taxes
The lawmakers while grilling the NPA management of their revenue profiles had also uncovered that they spent N101 billion in 2021.
The Committee chairman had queried why there was a sudden increase from N68 billion to N101 billion from 2019 to 2021 as the expenditure of the agency’s current budget.
Similarly, in his response to the queries raised by the lawmakers, the Executive Director of Finance of the NPA Mr Emeka Ezeugwu who representrd the Acting Managing Director said that there was an increase in staffing of the agency.
He further stated that there are six ports maintained by the agency after concessioning by the federal authorities adding that there was a reduction in its annual budget.
The Committee not satisfied with these responses had ruled and demanded that the agency avail it with relevant documents on concessioning and revenue on Thursday August 19, 2021.
Hon.Faleke had noted that the last audit carried out in the NPA was done in 2019.
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