By Samuel Itsede
Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari has issued a query to the chief executive of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler, over the service inability to meet tax revenue target since 2015.
In the leaked letter dated August 8, the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, said the presidency “observed significant variances between the budgeted collections and actual collections for the period 2015 to 2018.”
The indication is that since 2015, when Buhari came to power, FIRS under Mr Fowler has not been able to meet collection targets, as against previous years when Jonathan was in power.
In 2015, FIRS set N4.7 trillion target but was only able to make N3.7 trillion in the actual collection. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, the target collections were N4.2 trillion, N4.8 trillion and N6.7 trillion but the actual collections were N3.3 trillion, N4.0 trillion and N5.3 trillion, respectively.
“Accordingly, you are kindly invited to submit a comprehensive variance analysis explaining the reasons for the variances between the budgeted collections and actual collections for each main tax item for each of the years 2015 to 2018,” the query said
“Further we have observed that actual collections for the period between 2015 and 2017 were significantly worse than what was collected between 2012 and 2014,” stated Mr Kyari. “Accordingly, you are kindly invited to explain the reasons for the poor collections.”
Mr. Fowler is to appear before Abba Kyari on Monday, August 19.
