The Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning has disclosed that a total of nearly 5,000 borrowers currently owe the federal government an estimated N5.2 trillion in debt.
This was said on Monday in Kano at the North-West sensitization workshop on the federal government’s debt recovery drive through the project Lighthouse Programme by the director of special projects for the ministry, Victor Omota.Omota claimed that the debt was spread across 10 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and that “the Ministry through the consolidation efforts of the Debt Analytics & Reporting Application, has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately N5.2 trillion.” Omota was represented by his Deputy Director, Mohammed Saidu.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is the entity responsible for collecting these debts, and returns 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 (BOI) and Bank of Agriculture (BOA); judgment debt in favour of the government, and debts owed Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) by Insurance Companies etc.”He claimed that “Project Lighthouse,” one of the portfolio initiatives funded by the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative (SRGI), has made it possible to compile pertinent economic and financial data from numerous organizations that, up until this point, did not share data.
“In general, a lack of effective information exchange and enforcement has aided revenue loopholes. Due to a lack of visibility over these transactions, data from Project Lighthouse showed that many businesses and people who owe government agencies money were still being paid, notably through government platforms like GlFMIS and Treasury Single Account (TSA), he stated.
