By ALEX ENEBELI

The Director, Special Projects, Federal Ministry of Finance, Aisha Omar, has said the ministry has so far recovered N57 billion from the N5.2 trillion owed by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Omar disclosed this during the Sensitisation Workshop on Federal Government Debt Recovery Drive through Project Lighthouse Programme for South-East zone, on Tuesday in Enugu.

Declaring the event open, Omar said the debts came to the spotlight from data aggregated from over 5,000+ debtors across more than 93 MDAs.

Omar represented by Mrs Bridget Molokwu, the Deputy Director special projects, Ministry of Finance, Abuja, said the debts were in the form of liabilities to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

The director said that it also received refunds to the government by companies who failed to deliver on projects for which payment had been made.

Others are unpaid credit facilities granted to both corporate entities and individuals by the Bank of Industry (BOI) and Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Judgment Debt in favor of Government, debts owed Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) by insurance companies amongst others.

She added that data from Project Lighthouse revealed that many companies and individuals, who owed government agencies and refused to honor their obligations were still being paid.

This, she said, was done through the government platforms such as GIFMIS and Treasury Single Account (TSA) due to lack of visibility over these transactions.

According to her, in actualising debt recovery goal, the Federal Ministry of Finance initiated “Project Lighthouse”, which has enabled the aggregation of relevant economic and financial information from multiple agencies who hitherto did not share data.

“Generally, revenue loopholes have been aided by poor information sharing and enforcement.

“It may interest you to note that the Ministry through the consolidation efforts of the Debt Analytics and Reporting Application, has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately N5.2 trillion.

“The debt aggregation effort is still ongoing. Currently, approximately, N57 billion has been recovered so far from this amount due to concerted efforts on the part of stakeholders and the Federal Government,” she said.

The director said the similar workshop had been held in five other geo-political zones of the country namely South-West, North-Central, North-West, South-South and North-East.

She explained that important part of the policies and strategies was to leverage big data technology to help block revenue loopholes, identify new revenue opportunities, optimize existing revenue streams especially non-oil revenue as well as improved fiscal transparency.

“The Ministry, in this regard, has taken steps to address this major revenue loophole, through the issuance of a ministerial directive to all MDAs to aggregate all government debt across the Public Finance space as well as having a single window on the credit profile of government;

“Extend the functionalities of Debt Recovery Capability of Lighthouse to enable the Federal Ministry of Finance fully automate the debt recovery process and make settlements of debts as seamless as possible,”.

Omar said that the revenue generation effort would be dependent on cooperation and commitment of MDAs in providing quality and relevant information (debt-related data) to populate the platform.

“It is also our belief that your organization stand to benefit immensely from the intelligence that Project Lighthouse will be producing and we count on your continuous support to ensure the full realization of the goals and aspirations of this laudable project,” Omar appealed.

A participant, Mrs Ifeoma Ojukwu from Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, while commending the federal government for initiating the training, said she was to be informed on how the programme would benefit those in the health sector.

Ojukwu, who is an Assistant Director in the hospital, said the hospital remitted all taxes due for the federal government since they were using the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) to pay.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the various MDAs from the South-East zone participated in the exercise. (NAN)

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