The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, made this known at the launch of Project Lighthouse Debt Analytics and Reporting Platform in Abuja yesterday.
She said her ministry was leveraging a multilayer data mining to recover huge debts owed the Federal Government by MDAs.
Ahmed said through the consolidation efforts of the project, the government had been able to aggregate the huge debts owed by MDAs 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 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 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 effort of this project, a Debt Recovery Application has been built to be monitored by the new Debt Recovery Unit.
“The Unit will capitalise on the effort made by the project consultants to provide the government with up-to-date records into its credit status.”
Fed Govt recovers N53.5b from N5.2tr MDAs’ debt
“By harmonising debt records across MDAs, 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 urged Federal Government-Owned Enterprises (FGOEs) and MDAs to update their list of debtors on a monthly in line with the debt recovery portfolio.
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 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 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 effort of this project, a Debt Recovery Application has been built to be monitored by the new Debt Recovery Unit.
“The Unit will capitalise 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 MDAs, 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 urged Federal Government-Owned Enterprises (FGOEs) and MDAs to update their list of debtors on a monthly in line with the debt recovery portfolio.
Ahmed said this would also encompass the development of an institutional framework for enforcement, recovery and management of the fiscal environment.
She said 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 increase Tax to GDP ratio.