The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) had disclosed that it generated revenues to the tune of N4.2 trillion in the first nine months of 2021.
FIRS Chairman, Mohammed Nami, disclosed this when he was a guest on Arise News Channel.
He blamed oil supply cut by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for the agency’s inability to generate up to N7 trillion at this time, noting that the policy had clearly impacted the country negatively.
Nami said it was, therefore, imperative to diversify the company’s economy away from oil, pointing out that out of the collection, only N950 billion accrued from oil and gas taxes.
He further noted that with the new Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) which according to him, now mandates oil companies to account for every barrel produced, the FIRS expects more taxes to be remitted by the oil and gas companies.
“So, if you look at it critically, for the fact that we realised that there’s a problem in the oil and gas sector, the fact that Nigeria government requires these funds to fund the budget, we had to do one or two things differently, making sure we’re able to generate more money for the government,” he stated.
Nami noted that due to the long perennial windfall in the oil sector, a lot of tax sources were ignored, including stamp duty, adding that the tax body has now further embarked on unbundling of its tax administration process.
He said there are efforts to diversify the economy, while a number of factors have further impeded revenue from the oil sector, including the OPEC quota curbs, Nigeria’s inability to meet its production allocation and oil theft.
