The Senate yesterday passed the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) and approved that all tax waivers not directly linked to non-governmental and non-profit organisations should not be granted.
The approval followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Joint Committees on Finance, Appropriations, National Planning, Local and Foreign Debt that scrutinized the MTEF/FSP.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said the federal government lost N1.3 trillion in revenue in 2023 due to waivers and concessions granted to investors.
Deputy Comptroller General of Customs, Mba Musa, told lawmakers that tax waivers granted to some firms had significantly reduced the revenue generation of his agency.
The Red Chamber, after considering its joint panel report, asked the federal government to stop granting tax waivers to profit-oriented firms.
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It also approved that all investigations conducted into all tax waivers from 2015 to date by the relevant committees of the Senate should be revisited.
The Senate agreed that all items locally produced should be outrightly banned from importation and customs tariffs amended accordingly.
The committee had, in the report, observed that a significant number of the Federal Government’s revenue-generating agencies engaged in arbitrary, frivolous, and extra-budgetary expenditure.
The recommendation that a review of the laws of all revenue-generating agencies be carried out, was approved by the Senate.
The red chamber therefore urged the National Assembly to begin the process of amending the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA, 2007) in order to enhance the agencies’ ability to enforce fiscal responsibility and impose sanctions on erring corporations.
The Senate during the session considered the joint panel’s recommendation that the subsidiaries of NIPOST were irregular and illegal hence they should be wound up and deregistered.
It also asked the CBN to ensure that banks have access to foreign exchange in order to provide funds to importers and other users to prevent patronage of the parallel markets.
The senators approved the panel’s recommendation that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) work towards reducing its production and operational costs to increase available government revenue.
Other recommendations are that federal government agencies should ensure the deployment of ICT in the collection of all revenues by MDAs including stamp duty collection activities in order to block leakages.
