FG Owed Over N5.2 Trillion By Companies, Individuals – Finance Minister

By Akinwale Kasali

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed has disclosed the reason why the Federal Government has not been able to perform optimally and embark on certain projects. She said  that the Government is owed a whopping N5.2 trillion by Companies and individuals.

She added that over 5,000 Companies are owing the FG and its agencies and have as well failed and refused to honour their obligations.

The Minister made this disclosure during a two-day sensitization workshop on Project Lighthouse organised for ICT and Account Staff in Federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies across the North Central Zone in Minna, on Thursday, December 15th, 2022.

Represented by Director of Special Projects in the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Victor Omata, she said that the debts are owed by debtors spread across 19 Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

The Minister cited the lack of visibility of these transactions, poor information sharing, and enforcement as reasons why these revenue loopholes remain.

“The Ministry through the consolidation efforts of the Debt Analytics and Reporting Application has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately N5.2 trillion. These debts came to the spotlight from data aggregated from over 5,000+ debtors across ten Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.  The debt aggregation effort is still ongoing.

“These debts are in the form of debt liabilities to the Federal Inland Revenue Service; refunds to the government by companies who failed to deliver on projects for which payment had been effected, unpaid credit facilities granted to both corporate entities and individuals by the Bank of Industry and Bank of Agriculture; judgment debt in favour of Government, debts owed Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate by Insurance Companies among others.”

Speaking further, the Minister stated that the Project Lighthouse initiative has enabled the aggregation of relevant economic and financial information from multiple agencies that hitherto did not share data.

The lighthouse project is said to be one of the portfolio projects under the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative aimed at improving Federal Government’s revenues by targeting and increasing revenues from non-oil revenue sources.

“An important part of our policies and strategies is to leverage big data technology to help block revenue loopholes, recover debts, identify new revenue opportunities, optimize existing revenue streams, especially non-oil revenue as well as improve fiscal transparency,” he stated.

She called on Government MDAs to cooperate and provide quality and relevant information which is debt-related to populate the platform as it would improve the economic base of the country adding that the project would soon be institutionalised.