By Haruna Salami
The Senate has screened and confirmed the appointment of Zach Adedeji as Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
This screening and confirmation was conducted during Tuesday’s plenary, two weeks after President Bola Tinubu appointed his former Special Adviser on Revenue, Adedeji, as the new FIRS Chairman.
Shortly after the nominee’s presentation, Senator Adams Oshiomhole (APC, Edo North), in supporting the nomination of Zach Adedeji, raised an area of concern in the nominee’s CV.
He said, “What is not captured in his CV is character, patriotism and commitment that as a young person, he can do better than the elderly ones.
“I also want to commend the President for nominating young people under his administration.”
The Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) also raised concerns on the issues around taxation and urged Zach to inform the senators on how he intends to address it in the country.
“Tax is the major source of revenue generation. Now, Nigeria is depending on tax, just like the property and communication service tax. How are you going to address this matter”.
In his reply, Zach attributed the primary issue facing the nation to lack of accurate data and stressed the importance of gathering information before making judgements.
He claimed it will provide for adequate information on the precise number of vessels carrying oil coming into the country.
“What we need is data on the total leverage. We need to develop the data, so that it can be used to identify those in affluence who pay insufficient tax”, he said.
We will improve our data mining capacity and we will centralise the identification system in Nigeria using the NIN so that when we run the report, we can now ask questions where necessary. We will make good use of data”, he added.