- Holds sensitisation in South East
By Jude Chinedu, Jude Chinedu, Enugu
The Federal Government of Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (FMFBNP), has intensified efforts to recover debts to improve government revenue across the federation.
The Director, Special Projects FMFBNP Aisha Omar made this known while flagging off a one-day South East zonal sensitisation workshop under the Project Lighthouse Initiative in Enugu on Tuesday.
Omar said the ministry has recovered over N57 billion out of about N5.2 trillion owed by over 5,000 debtors across more than (93) Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
She said that one of the key economic policy objectives of the ministry is improving Federal Government revenues by targeting and increasing revenues from non-oil sources.
“An important part of our policies and strategies is to leverage big data technology to help block revenue loopholes, identify new revenue opportunities, optimise existing revenue streams especially non-oil revenue as well as improve fiscal transparency.
“In actualising this goal, the Federal Ministry of Finance initiated the Project Lighthouse which has enabled the aggregation of relevant economic and financial information from multiple agencies who hitherto did not share data. Generally, revenue loopholes have been aided by poor information sharing and enforcement.
“Data from Project Lighthouse revealed that many companies and individuals, who owe government agencies, who have refused to honour their obligations were still being paid especially through the government platforms such as GIFMIS and Treasury Single Account (TSA) due to lack of visibility over these transactions.
“These debts are in the form of debt liabilities to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); refunds to the Government by companies who failed to deliver on projects for which payment had been made, unpaid credit facilities granted to both corporate entities and individuals by the Bank of Industry (BOI) and Bank of Agriculture (BOA); Judgment Debt in favour of Government, debts owed Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) by Insurance Companies.
“It may interest you to note that the Ministry, through the consolidation efforts of the Debt Analytics & Reporting Application, has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately 5.2 trillion. These debts came to the spotlight from data aggregated from over 5,000 debtors across more than 93 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
“The debt aggregation effort is still ongoing. Currently, approximately 57 billion has been recovered so far from this amount due to concerted efforts on the part of stakeholders and the Federal Government.
“It is worth noting that the usefulness of this platform for our revenue generation effort will be dependent on your cooperation and commitment to providing quality and relevant information (debt-related data) to populate the platform.
She urged all the ministries, agencies, and MDAS to collaborate with the Ministry of Finance to achieve success and change the revenue story of the country.