The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) have taken opposing positions on revenue remittances by the latter to the Federation Account domiciled with the apex bank. Their disagreement emanates from a shortfall in revenue generated from Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), Value Added Tax (VAT) and Company Income Tax (CIT), amounting to N26.703billion which the FIRS claimed it remitted to the Federation Account between December 2018 and January 2019. While the FIRS reported that N321.23 billion as total PPT and CIT collections for December 2018 was remitted to the Federation Account with the CBN, the apex bank’s component statement showed that N294.62 billion was received from FIRS during the period.
The CBN figure showed a shortfall of N26.61 billion of the amount the FIRS claimed it paid into the account. The document, revealed that FIRS allegedly posted N199.16 billion as total PPT and VAT collections in January 2019 while the CBN component statement to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) post-mortem sub-committee indicated that FIRS paid N199.07 billion, which was a shortfall of N90.88 million. The post-mortem sub-committee of FAAC which extensively deliberated upon the reason for the differences between the two agencies could not resolve the matter at its last monthly meeting held at the Board Room of Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Committee (RMFAC) on April 24, 2019. The committee, therefore, directed the two agencies to meet and reconcile their accounts and report back at the next meeting. The meeting was attended by representatives of RMFAC, commissioners of finance and accountants-general from the six geopolitical zones as well as representatives of some revenue generating and accounting agencies.
Source: Leadership
