The Senate has linked the dwindling economic activities in the country to the security challenges in the North East region where the activities of Boko Haram terrorists have undermined government tax opportunities including income, profit and consumption taxes.
It also noted that previous government’s abuse of waivers and incentives, which it described as key intermediate inputs geared towards boosting domestic productive activities, contributed to the generation of lower non-oil revenue of N2, 455.33billion in 2015.
The Senate joint committees on finance, appropriations and national planning and economic affairs made these observations in its report on the 2016 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF and Fiscal Strategy Paper.
It was categorical that the activities of Boko Haram in the North East were such that greatly hampered the economy of the region and largely affected the country, such that it further affected the revenue forecasts of the country in the 2015 fiscal year.
While calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to show commitment to end the insurgency, the Senate recalled that huge sums of monies were appropriated for the fight against insurgency in the North East, in spite of the state of emergencies declared in the region by the former President Goodluck Jonathan, which achieved no purpose as the activities of the terrorists defied all the measures.
As regards the abuses in the non-oil revenue in the 2015 fiscal year, the upper chamber stated that, “N2, 455.33billion as against N4, 063.40billion for the year and N3, 047.55 billion prorated to September 2015, representing 60.42 per cent for the full year and 80.56 per cent prorated to September 2015.
“Also, the decreases in the volume of imports, due to the naira depreciation against the dollar and the restriction on foreign exchange allocation for the import of some items contributed to the non-oil receipts, particularly with respect to Nigeria Customs Service collections of N449.26billion, year to September as against N650.1billion and N866.80billion for the full year.”
The Senate also assured that the National Assembly would see to it that the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS delivers on its promises to raise the tax collection closer to the tax/GDP ratio expected of the economy in the 2016 fiscal year.
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