FIRS budget: NASS queries N160m for drivers’ uniforms, N825m for refreshment, N250m for security vote, others
National Assembly Joint Committee has raised concern over Federal Inland Revenue Service’s 2019 projected estimate of non-oil revenue tax collection of N146.54 billion.
The Co-chairman of the committee, Sen. John Enoh and other members of the committee raised the concern at FIRS’s budget defence in Abuja on Monday.
The committee sought to know why the 2018 approved estimate was N153.85 while the 2019 projected cost stood at N146.54 amounting to 4.75 per cent decrease.
On personnel cost, the committee asked why the service was proposing 14.6 per cent increase in the number of staff from 7, 854 in 2018 to 9000 staff in 2019.
It equally demanded an explanation for the “proposed N160 million meant to sew drivers’ uniforms, N825 million for refreshment and security vote of N250 million” among others.
The Executive Chairman of FIRS, Mr Tunde Fowler
while presenting the budget proposal, noted that the proposed increase in staff
strength was due to the recruitment of staff scheduled in 2019.
He further explained that N160 million was
earmarked to sew uniforms for the 850 drivers of the service as part of an
effort to make them fit properly into the structure.
Also, he said the amount earmarked for security
vote was meant to attend to some security issues, particularly those not
receipted for.
“The achievement of 2019 budget will be driven by
increased oil and non-oil revenue tax collection.
“The service in the realisation of this responsibility
and challenges of doing manual collection will continue to implement automated
tax collection for the critical sectors of the economy notably
telecommunications, airlines and financial institutions.
“The deployment of these platforms is at no cost
to the service and the consultants will only be rewarded on increased revenue
generation.
“There will be increased enforcement activities
nationwide to bring more taxpayers into the tax net and increase compliance
level,’’ Fowler said.
NAN/Punch
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