FEC approves N1.5 billion adverts to get $1 billion tax

• FG, states, councils share N4.6t in nine months
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday approved N1.5 billion for media advertisements to drive $1 billion revenue under the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS).

VAIDS, according to the Ministry of Finance, is a platform designed to provide tax payers with the opportunity to regularise their tax payments in relation to their previous payments.

Briefing State House Correspondents after the meeting yesterday, Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun who was joined by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed and Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, said:

“I presented a memo on the voluntary Asset Declaration Bill… for approval of the sum of N1.5b to cover advertising campaign for nine months, for Radio, TV, Online, newspapers including center spread.” The minister said she also briefed Council, chaired yesterday on the progress made by the government under the tax amnesty.

“And it has been very well received. We have people who are ready to declare and pay. We sent out over 500 letters under the first batch, but there are thousand of Nigerians being targeted but the first 500 letters have gone out.

“We have started to get responses back and many people are asking for time to pay. Most of the governors have agreed to give more time for people to make arrangements for payments. This is indeed a very good news for Nigeria as it will help reduce over reliance on oil. It will improve our tax revenue so that whether oil prices are high or low, we will be able to provide basic services for our people.’’

“On the amount expected, we projected $1b and we have already gotten $110m and that is just from two companies. So, we feel we might exceed that target.”

FEC also announced the disengagement of SCC limited from the maintenance of the 75km Gurara pipeline project. This is as it said the government has approved N1.712 billion as pay off to the firm for the maintenance services it has rendered in the past nine years.

Meanwhile, the three tiers of government shared N4.55 trillion in the first nine months of the year, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has said.

NEITI stated yesterday in Abuja that the period also recorded a downward slide in revenue generation as the country suffered 49 per cent lower than the expected figures.

NEITI added that the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursed N1.757 trillion in third quarter of 2017.

Out of N4.55 trillion, N1.757 trillion was shared in the third quarter of 2017 as against the N1.377 trillion and N1.411 trillion disbursed in the second and first quarters of the year.

The latest quarterly report of NEITI contains information and data on FAAC disbursements for the third quarter of 2017 and on mid-year budget implementation also shows that between January and September 2017, the Federal Government received the highest allocation of N1.851.32 trillion, followed by state governments with N1.509 trillion and the 774 local governments with N913.8 billion.

The sum of N271.78 billion went to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Customs and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as cost of revenue collections.

Further analysis shows that the revenues shared to the federating units were higher in the third quarter of 2017, which has been the pattern for some years now.

For instance, while the Federal Government got N549.41billion in the second quarter of 2017, third quarter figures were N752.79billion, an increase of 37..02per cent. The trend is the same for the states and local governments, which received N586.58billion and N363.98 billion in the third quarter as against N467.13 and 280.42 billion in the second quarter respectively.

The percentage increases between the two quarters for the two tiers of government are 25.57 per cent and 29.80 per cent respectively.

The review attributed the reason for the increases in FAAC disbursements to the three tiers of governments in the third quarter to what it called “Positive developments in the oil sector – evident from resurgent oil prices and increased production levels.

The third quarter also represents the summer season when global oil demand and consequently oil prices are generally higher than other times of the year and this could possibly explain the higher revenue accruals to the Federation account in these third quarters.”