President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari has queried the Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler over huge short fall in revenue collection by the Agency.
Kyari in a letter dated 8, 2019 expected Fowler to give explanation on why decline in the revenue collection of the Agency.
Fowler is an ally of former Governor of Lagos state, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
According to the letter, we observed variance between the budget collection and actual collection for the period of 2015-2018.
Kyari added that the collections for the period of 2015-2017 were significantly worse that 2012-2014.
See attached the document below:
ElombahNews, however, on December 13, 2018, reported that the FIRS chairman confirmed that the agency has generated N5 trillion in second week of December.
According to him, N5 trillion revenue generated by the agency is the highest in the history of Nigeria.
https://elombah.com/breaking-news-firs-hits-n5-trillion-in-revenues/
This document above dated August 8, 2019, tells otherwise. In fact it confirms a decline.
Nigerians, therefore, could not hide their confusion when Kyari fired a query to Fowler demanding explanations.
Reacting to the query, the former Chairman of National Human Rights Commission [NHRC], Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, asked:
“Wasn’t FIRS supposedly raising unprecedented levels of revenue under the current administration, despite predictable consequences of recession?
“And, why would the CoS wait until 2019 to query 2015-17 revenue results?”