Nigeria losing revenue to IFFs, FG cries out
By Patience Ikpeme
The federal government has raised the alarm that Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) have fretted away large amounts of domestic revenue that should have served the country.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Revenue, Zacch Adedeji, made this disclosure on Thursday in Abuja at the one-day hybrid sensitisation workshop on the published “Guidelines for Private Sector Response to Illicit Financial Flow (IFF) Vulnerabilities in Nigeria” organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
Zacch Adedeji in his address stated that “Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) have significantly eroded domestic revenues and hampered government’s efforts to mobilize resources, thereby threatening economic stability and sustainable development”.
“In Nigeria and across the African continent, we continue to suffer various forms of IFFs, including tax evasion and other harmful tax practices, the illegal export of foreign exchange, abusive transfer pricing, trade mispricing, mis-invoicing of services, illegal exploitation and under-invoicing of natural resources, organized crimes, and corruption,” he added.
Adedeji emphasised that stemming illicit financial flows would address its negative impact on global development agenda as well as governance challenge.
The federal government he revealed has vowed to make every kobo realised as revenue count positively for the country”.
“The President believes in fiscal discipline which rests on the accurate prediction of revenue. If the government can’t count your money, the government can’t allocate it and if the government can’t allocate it, it can’t manage it. The administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will make every kobo of our revenue count.”
The special adviser commended the Chairman of the ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, for the successes so far recorded by the anti-corruption agency in the fight against IFFs.
According to him, “Some level of progress and successes have so far been recorded in the fight against IFFs through the concerted efforts of the ICPC’s sensitization and capacity building of major players in the various sectors of the economy as well as citizenry on the menace of IFFs.
“These efforts have yielded great results and benefits as the nation through these robust engagements has plugged identified leakages/loopholes that enable IFFs by the relevant circulars issued by the Federal Government,” he stated.
“The published guidelines will set a new trajectory in the fight against IFFs in the Private Sector, thereby putting Nigeria at the forefront of African countries to achieve this great feat.
“The purpose of the published Guidelines is to further assist, guide and strengthen the private sector operators in curbing IFFs. The aim of this publication is to set the path for more interventions in the fight against IFFs and IFF-related activities,” Adedeji said.
In his welcome remarks, the ICPC Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye SAN, noted that IFFs was a drain on Nigeria’s potential revenue accretion and foreign exchange reserves.
This, according to him, has resulted in exchange rate depreciation, inflation and increase in cost of servicing external debts in addition to negatively impacting on the cost of imported goods like petroleum with its attendant radical consequences on daily livelihood experience of ordinary citizens.
On the way out of IFFs trap, the ICPC boss called for diverse measures to tackle the menace in all its forms and in order to improve Nigeria’s quest for domestic revenue increase relative to the size of her economy and in spite of the volatile global economic and financial system.
He assured that the Commission would continue to focus attention on practical measures to enhance Nigeria’s ability to stem IFFs, reduce capital flight and enhance the country’s capacity for domestic resource mobilisation by identifying vulnerabilities and other weaknesses in the systems and processes of agencies and institutions within the public and private sector and advising reforms to mitigate losses.
