By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has announced the recovery of N57 billion from the N5.2 trillion liabilities owed to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and other bodies by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government.
This was disclosed by the Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mr Okokon Ekanem Udo, on Tuesday in Enugu State during a Sensitisation Workshop on Federal Government Debt Recovery Drive through Project Lighthouse Programme for the South-East geo-political zone.
Mr Ekanem stated that the debts came from data aggregated from over 5,000 debtors across more than 93 MDAs.
Represented by the Ministry’s Director, Special Projects, Mrs Aisha Omar, the Permanent Secretary said that it also received refunds to the government from companies who failed to deliver on projects for which payment had been made, according to a statement by a spokesman for the ministry, Mr Mohammed Manga.
He added that others are unpaid credit facilities granted to both corporate entities and individuals by the Bank of Industry (BOI), Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Judgment Debt in favour of the government and debts owed Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) by insurance companies amongst others.
Mr Udo added that data from Project Lighthouse revealed that many companies and individuals, who owe government agencies and refused to honour their obligations were still being paid.
According to the Permanent Secretary, this was done through government platforms such as GIFMIS and Treasury Single Account (TSA) due to a lack of visibility over these transactions.
He explained that in actualising the debt recovery goal, the Federal Ministry of Finance initiated Project Lighthouse, which has enabled the aggregation of relevant economic and financial information from multiple agencies that did not share data.
Mr Ekanem explained that, generally, revenue loopholes have been aided by poor information sharing and enforcement. It may interest you to note that the Ministry, through the consolidation efforts of the Debt Analytics and Reporting Application, has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately N5.2 trillion, he said.
The Permanent Secretary explained further that the debt aggregation effort is still ongoing and stated that currently, approximately N57 billion has been recovered so far from this amount due to concerted efforts on the part of stakeholders and the Federal Government
He disclosed that the Ministry has taken steps to address this major revenue loophole, by issuing a ministerial directive to all MDAs to aggregate all government debt across the public finance space, as well as having a single window on the government’s credit profile.