Corruption: Federal Government Saves N603.9 Billion Through Presidential Initiative On Continuous Audit, Finance Minister

L-R: Representative of Acting  Director General,  Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr Isyaku Tilde; Minister of Finance, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed and Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) during a World Press Conference on the Activities of Ministry of Finance in Abuja Thursday

***As External Reserve Hits $44.69 Billion

By CLEMENT NWOJI, Abuja

The Federal Government has saved N603.78 billion as part of the gains from the on going crusade against corrupt practices through the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) from 2016 to date.

Finance Minister, Mrs Zainab Ahmed made the disclosure at a press conference on Thursday to give update of developments under the ministry’s supervision.

Further, she disclosed that a total sum of N4.8 trillion was distributed to the three-tiers of government between September 2018 and April 2019 from the Federation Account.

She said despite these, revenue generation to fund critical socioeconomic infrastructure remains a challenge to the Nation which must be tackled by all.

According to her, “The Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) has saved the Federation N603.78 billion from its inception in 2016 to date. Among this figure, is the savings of N8.30 billion during Q1 2019.

“As part of this administration’s zero tolerance on corruption, PICA’s findings on ghost workers has been acted on by convicting some civil servants and also there are some that are undergoing trial in the court while others are undergoing investigation by the EFCC.

“A total sum of N4.8 trillion was distributed to the three-tiers of government between September 2018 and April 2019 from the Federation Account. Similarly, the sum of N784.7 billion realized from value added tax (VAT) for the same period was also shared.”

The finance minister indicated that the Federal government is making efforts to offset the Paris Club debts refund owed to States.

She said: “For the final phase of the Paris Club debt refunds, the total sum of N649.434 billion was verified by the Ministry as the outstanding balance to be refunded to the State Governments.

“The payments made by the CBN as at March 2019, is N691.560 billion. The increase in CBN payments partly arose from exchange rate differential at the point of payment. Although, some States still have
outstanding balances, which will be refunded, in due course”

On the current state of the nation’s external reserves, she said it grew from $28.3 billion in 2015 to US $44.69 billion as at May 13, 2019, adding that this represented a
significant improvement that has helped to stabilize the economy, including stabilizing the country’s exchange rates.

On tax she said: “Through reforms at the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) and the Joint Tax Board (JTB), we have been able to harmonize the Tax Identity Number (TIN) database to cover Federal, States and LGs to establish a unified identity number system for uniquely identifying tax payers.

“In essence, the taxpayer database has expanded from 10 million that was inherited by President Buhari in 2015 to 35 million as at the end of 2018. It is anticipated that this figure will grow to 45 million individuals as well as corporate payers when the ongoing integration of different biometric databases is completed.”

Also, on the budget, the Minister said that even though the 2019 Budget is yet to be signed into appropriation Act by President Muhammadu Buhari, there is no vacuum created.

She explained that spending had already begun and as soon as it was signed, reconciliation with the 2018 Budget will be done.

She said: “It is not lost on us that our 2018 revenue performance has a negative variance of 45% of the year’s budget target. Consequently, all efforts of all the agencies under the Ministry of Finance, as well as other key Government agencies, are geared towards increasing our revenue performance. Consequently, we are working towards establishing a credible baseline.

“In 2018 our budgeted revenue was N7.2 trillion this is against the realised figure of N3.96 trillion, signifying a negative variance of 45%. Despite this shortfall we have been able to fully pay salaries & service 100% of our debt.

“We have also released seven months overhead for 2018, two months for 2019, and N2.079 trillion capital expenditure as at 14th May 2019.

“We have adopted a prudent debt management strategy which ensures that we invest what we borrow in capital projects. Although our debt by international standards, at 19.09% Nigeria’s debt to GDP ratio is a reasonable ratio, but this is well below the average threshold of 56% for countries similar to Nigeria.”