The chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zaccheus Adedeji, has said that the N2.59 trillion Tax Credit Scheme introduced by the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2021 is not working.
Adedeji has, therefore, called on the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government to discontinue it.
Adedeji spoke on Wednesday during his appearance before the Senate Committee on Finance led by Senator Sani Musa.
The Musa-led Senate Committee on Finance particularly sought more clarity about the deplorable condition of the federal roads across the country.
When Adedeji was called up to speak on the scheme which was introduced through Executive Order 7 of 2021 under the immediate past president, Buhari, the FIRS boss kicked strongly against the initiative, calling it illegal.
“The Mandate of FIRS lumped with the execution of Tax Credit Scheme for road construction, is to access, collect tax and remit it into the federation account and not to appropriate it for any purpose through executive order,” he said.
“It is not the duty of FIRS and NNPCL to be paying contractors. The Ministry of Works should be in line with its core mandate and be allowed to award road contracts and pay for them.
“The scheme to many people, serves as a faster way for road reconstruction or rehabilitation across the country, but we should stop increasing speed towards wrong direction.”
Adedeji said as a way of stopping the wrong approach, FIRS and the CBN would be holding a meeting with the Ministry of Works on Friday, February 16, 2024.
He added that at the meeting, they are going to take stock of what had been done through the scheme and thereafter, they will toe the right path.
“We should in a nutshell, not continue in the wrong trajectory” the FIRS Chairman said.
