The Director, Special Projects, FMFBNP, Mr Victor Omota, stated this during the South -South Zonal Sensitisation Workshop on Federal Government debt recovery drive through Project Lighthouse on Tuesday, July 4 2023 in Asaba, Delta.
Omota was represented by Mrs Bridget Molokwu, Deputy Director in the ministry. He said that the ministry has recovered over ₦58 billion out of about ₦5.2 trillion owed by over 7,000 debtors to 11 MDAs in the past three years through its Project Lighthouse policy.
He said that the project was designed by the federal government through collaboration with the 946 federal MDAs, to recover all debts owed and to block the revenue leakages. The director said efforts were being intensified to track all the debts owed the MDAs by its clients to ensure improved revenue to the government.
“It may interest you to note that the ministry through the consolidation efforts of the Debt Analytics and Reporting Application has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately ₦5.2 trillion.
“These debts came to the spotlight from data aggregated from over 7,000 debtors across 11 MDAs. The debt aggregation effort is still ongoing,” he said.
“You will recall that one of the key economic policy objectives of the current administration is improving Federal Government revenues by targeting and increasing revenues from non-oil revenue sources.
“An important part of our policies and strategies is to leverage big data technology to help block revenue loopholes, identify new revenue opportunities, optimize existing revenue streams..
“In actualising this goal, the ministry initiated ‘’Project Lighthouse’’, which is one of the portfolio projects under the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative (SRGI).
“This initiative has enabled the aggregation of relevant economic and financial information from multiple agencies who hitherto did not share data,” he said.
According to him, revenue loopholes have been aided by poor information sharing and enforcement.
“Data from Project Lighthouse revealed that many companies and individuals who owe government agencies, have refused to honour their obligations.
” In spite of the debt, the debtors were still being paid, especially through the government platforms such as GIFMIS and Treasury Single Account (TSA) due to lack of visibility over these transactions.
“These debts are in the form of debt liabilities to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); refunds to the Government by companies who failed to deliver on projects for which payment had been effected,“ he said.
He noted that the ministry collaborating with the MDAs would promptly help to recover these debts and address these major revenue loopholes.
Omota said the government had issued a ministerial directive on Sept. 26, 2019 to all MDAs, with a view to aggregate all Government debt across the Public Finance Space, as well as a single window on the credit profile of the Government.
In an interview with Mr Abraham Atteh and Mr Suleiman Tambaya, Consultants to the ministry, they said that the government could deliver more social services to the citizenry if it could recover all debts owed it from the MDAs.
They said that the idea behind Project Lighthouse was to collaborate with the 946 MDAs of the federal government to track and recover debts owed them using a designed technological system.
Atteh said the Project Lighthouse, which came into operation in 2019, has been able to aggregate about ₦5.2 trillion debt across 11 MDAs.
“But this is a shortfall of the debt aggregate given the 946 MDAs because the debt from 11 MDAs is not a true reflection of the debt profile owed the government''.
Tambaya said the sensitisation is aimed at encouraging all the MDAs to key into the project to ensure a seamless debt recovery process from their clients. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that there was an interactive section with the participants on the challenges and the way forward.