FCTA to accelerate dev’t as revenue board swings into action

The journey towards shoring up internally generated revenue (IGR) in Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will receive a shot in the arm with the planned inauguration of the FCT Inland Revenue Service (IRS) this week.

The money-spinning agency will also streamline issues of multiple taxation, a frequent complaint of business persons.

Against the backdrop of the recent clearance of the agency’s newly-appointed Chairman/CEO, Abdulahi Ote Attah, by the Senate, FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, disclosed that the FCT IRS will be inaugurated this week.

The Minister made the revelation while addressing members of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Abuja branch during its 4th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abuja last Thursday. Bello said the FCT IRS, when fully operational, will tackle the incidence of multiple taxation in the Territory with a view to streamlining all taxes in the FCT.

He said: “I’m sure that by next (this) week, we are inaugurating the new FCT Internal Revenue Service. Some taxes in the FCT were collected on our behalf by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, but now we have an Act that clearly stipulates what we are supposed to do and what we need to collect.

I do know that as manufacturers in FCT and all over the country, one of the greatest complaints is that you have been dealing with so many agencies with respect to revenue collection. That has a way of bringing lack of transparency and nuisance value to many of you.

Bello, while empathising with the manufacturers who already set up businesses, noted that: “The main challenge, of course, is for those of you that are not operating within strictly designated areas meant for manufacturing.

We are trying to be proactive to appreciate the fact that most of you set up at a time when you didn’t have the full information and already you are investors, you are employing labour and there obviously will be substantial amount of economic waste if some of you were to be relocated. You are very important economic partners because of the goods and services that you provide and the labour that you employ and then the taxes that you pay from time to time.

So, we are trying to see those that can be integrated and those that we can make alternatives for. That is why so many of you have not been able to get title documents. But I do hope that in the next few months, we can sort out some of these things.

Bello, however, appealed to manufacturers in FCT to continue to pay their taxes, saying it is only by so doing that government will have enough resources to provide basic infrastructure in the city.

The Minister nonetheless promised to improve the relationship between manufacturers and agencies under the FCT Administration, especially the land department, in line with the Federal Government’s policy of improving ease of doing business in the country.

In his remarks, the President, MAN in FCT, Frank Udemba Jacobs, thanked the Minister for finding time to interact with manufacturers in the territory, adding “this, we all believe, would further update you on how the manufacturing sector is faring.

He pledged to continue to champion the cause for a better business environment in FCT and other parts of the country.