The Federal Government is set to integrate the activities of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agencies (NIMASA), the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), and other revenue-collecting agencies in Nigeria.
According to Zach Adedeji, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Revenue, disclosed this on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.
Adedeji said the government will double the country’s total annual revenue which is currently below N15trn by deepening the nation’s revenue collection system and not by adding extra taxes.
According to the President’s revenue chief, Nigeria has a revenue problem but the current administration is prepared to tackle the challenge through fiscal discipline and harmonisation of revenue channels using technology to view all government revenue-collecting agencies in realtime.
“The law is very clear as to how to collect revenue. In Section 162 of the Nigerian Constitution, it is clearly stated that there shall be an account called the Federation Account and all government revenue must be put into that account,” Adedeji said.
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“When we talk about harmonisation, we are just saying integration of all collecting agencies, that on one platform, we can know what is happening in NIMASA, NPA, NCC, Customs, Federal Inland Revenue (Service)…We will make use of technology to know everything going on in realtime.”
Adedeji clarified that the Tinubu administration is not going to collapse revenue-generating bodies like the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), and the Nigeria Customs Service.
Rather, he said, the current administration will use technology to integrate all revenue-collecting agencies to monitor revenue in real-time and remove any form of “government within government”.
Adedeji also stressed that Tinubu has already approved the harmonisation of all the revenue-collecting agencies.
“We are not collapsing. NNPC will be NNPC because it is limited, Federal Inland Revenue (Service) will be but the collection of all revenue will be technologically driven by data…Why there seems to be government within government is because of the law because there is no real law that specify what they should do.”
He also said the removal of petrol subsidy and the unification of foreign exchange rates has removed the “distortion we have in our economy”, saying Nigerians would soon begin to see the “windfall which I know will bring shared prosperity for all Nigerians”.
