Debt: 10 MDAs help the Nigerian government collect N57 billion

According to Aisha Omar, Director of Special Projects at the Federal Ministry of Finance, the ministry has managed to recover N57 billion out of the total debt due by MDAs, which amounts to N5.2 trillion.

This revelation was made by Omar during Tuesday’s Sensitization Workshop in Enugu on the Federal Government Debt Recovery Drive under the Project Lighthouse Programme for the South-East zone.

While announcing the start of the event, Omar stated that the 5,000+ debtors from 93+ MDAs were the ones whose debts were brought to light.

According to Omar, who was represented by Bridget Molokwu, Deputy Director Special Projects at the Ministry of Finance in Abuja, the debts in question were FIRS obligations.

Companies who did not complete paid tasks also refunded the government, according to the director.

Among other things, there are outstanding balances owing to the government by various bodies, such as the Bank of Industry (BOI) and the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), as well as insurance firms’ obligations to the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD).

She continued by saying that statistics from Project Lighthouse showed that many people and businesses that owed the government money but didn’t want to pay were still getting their money.

She said that this was done through official government systems like GIFMIS and Treasury Single Account (TSA) since these transactions could not be seen by the general public.

She claims that the Federal Ministry of Finance launched “Project Lighthouse” to facilitate the consolidation of previously siloed economic and financial data in order to achieve the debt recovery objective.

Inadequate information exchange and enforcement have often helped revenue loopholes.

You might be interested to know that the Ministry has consolidated massive debts totaling over N5.2 trillion using the Debt Analytics and Reporting Application.

Debt accumulation is a continuing process. So far, stakeholders and the Federal Government have worked together to collect almost N57 billion of this sum,” she added.