The Federal Government has recovered N53.5 billion out of N5.2 trillion from its Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, MDAs.
This was revealed in a statement by the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed at the launch of Project Lighthouse Debt Analytics and Reporting Platform in Abuja on Monday.
She said her ministry was leveraging a multilayer data mining effort to recover huge debts owed the Federal Government by various Ministries MDAs.
Ahmed said through the consolidation efforts of the project, the government had been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately N5.2 trillion owed by MDAs, out of which N53.5 billion had been recovered in the last 12-18 months.
She said the Project Lighthouse is an initiative which entails using advanced data mining and analytics techniques to identify tax defaulters, establish their tax liabilities and send notifications to appropriate authorities for necessary actions.
Ahmed said that the figures came up from data aggregated from over 5,000 debtors across 10 MDAs.
“Working in collaboration with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), we have been able to recover the sum of N53.5 billion within the last 12-18 months, through the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) as a recovery touch point.
“To consolidate on the current effort of this project, a Debt Recovery Application has been built to be monitored by the new Debt Recovery Unit.
“The Debt Recovery Unit will capitalize on the effort made by the project consultants to provide the government with up-to-date records into its credit status.
“By harmonising debt records across all MDAs within the country, give debtors access to a platform to view and offset debt in a seamless and secured manner as well as strengthen the institutional framework for enforcement and management of the Federal Debt Recovery plan,” she said.
The minister tasked all Federal Government-Owned Enterprises (FGOEs) and MDAs to update their list of debtors on a month-on-month basis in line with the Project Lighthouse debt recovery portfolio.
Ahmed said that this would also encompass the development of an institutional framework for enforcement, recovery and management of the fiscal environment.
She said that one of the key economic policy objectives of the current administration, as contained in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), was improving overall Federal Government revenues by targeting and increasing revenues from non-oil revenue sources.
“ERGP also aims, among other goals, to increase the tax base by drastically increasing the Company Income Tax and Value Added Tax compliance, bringing additional taxpayers into the tax net, and increasing the Tax to GDP ratio.
“You will recall that in the last few months, major steps have been taken to improve the fiscal position of Government, one of such steps is the implementation of quite a number of portfolio initiatives under the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiatives (SRGI), which some of you have been participating in,” Mrs Ahmed said.
