By Haruna Salami
Management of the Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service ( FCT – IRS), came under fire in Senate Thursday , over alleged planned remittance of N1 billion to Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS as commission from projected N100 billion revenue collection.
The N1 billion remittance came to the fore when the agency led by its Executive Chairman, Mallam Abdullahi Attah appeared before the Senate Committee on FCT for approval of N8.5 billion 2021 budget proposal .
The agency had earlier appeared before the Senate Committee headed by Senator Abubakar Kyari for that purpose, but told to re – appear Thursday on alleged discrepancies in budgetary proposals submitted .
Trouble for the agency started when the Chairman of the Committee , Senator Kyari asked Mallam Abdullahi Attah to explain the N1 billion planned remittance to FIRS from projected revenue generation in 2021.
The FCT-IRS Chairman in his response said the planned remittance as done on yearly basis , was for payment of salaries of 117 FIRS staff who are collaborating with the agency for aggressive revenue generation and collection .
“Out of the entire 130 operatives of the agency, 117 of them are from the FIRS who must be taken care of”, he said .
Angered by the submission, the Committee Chairman wondered why the agency since its creation about four years ago , has not recruited enough staff to drive its revenue collections.
“Are you saying that the N1 billion remitted to the FIRS from the N50 billion generated last year was for payment of salaries of the 117 FIRS staff? Being staff of FIRS, are they not on salary structure from the FIRS itself and is that the reason why you are proposing same in your 2021 budgetary projections?
Kyari said “what is paramount is the 2020 performance? I recall January 2020 the same thing happened when they are to defend their 2020. The committee approved N5.3 billion which was derived from 5% cost of collection for 2019 and balance borough forward from 2019.
“In that proposal it was agreed that they will set up their operation fully in 2020. Provision was made for employment of 400 staff with all the attendant support structures such as vehicles, offices, etc so that FCT-IRS would take off fully being in operation for almost three years at that time. They were to severe relationship in terms of their statutory responsibilities with FIRS”, but surprisingly the agency has failed to recruit any staff.
Joining the Chairman in condemning the practice , members of the committee like Senators Sani Musa (Niger East) , Sam Egwu (Ebonyi North) , Smart Adeyemi (Kogi West) and Tolu Odebiyi (Ogun West), described it as unacceptable .
Sam Egwu in taking up the embattled FCT-IRS boss, said “the N1 billion being remitted to FIRS by your agency is nauseating and must be stopped .
“If you don’t have enough men to collect the revenue for you , carry out recruitment exercise for that purpose. Why must you be paying people who are already being taken care of elsewhere salary wise? , he thundered .
Also lampooning the IRS boss, Senator Smart Adeyemi said “I’m disappointed in your very poor performance which is enough to throw you out of the window.
“Mr chairman, please give this man and the non-performing agency marching order”.
Consequently , the chairman in his ruling told the FCT-IRS boss and his team to take their leave while their proposals will be thoroughly looked into .
But fielding questions from journalists later, Mallam Abdullahi Attah said the agency is like a baby that should be allowed to crawl first before walking, let alone running .
“As far as I am concerned, we have improved from what we met on ground .
“For instance , in 2017/2018, when FIRS was fully in charge , N50 billion revenue was the total collection, which was increased to N100 billion in 2020 and even projected to be N130billion in 2021”, he explained.
