The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Departments and Agencies

  • Govt begins harmonisation of MDAs salaries

    The National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) has begun the  harmonisation of salaries in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

    Defending the commission’s budget at the National Assembly, its Executive Chairman, Dr. Richard Onwuka Egbule, said to achieve an enduring harmonisation, efforts were being made to have a comprehensive review of the grading system.

    Egbule explained that the commission achieved a 74 per cent implementation of the 2018 budget, which he hoped would be surpassed this year.

    He said after 25 years of its inauguration, the commission was facing accommodation problem.

    Egbule said it was due to the lack of space that the commission could not recruit in the last 10 years, adding that the need for more office space has become more pressing.

    He noted that NSIWC operates from six  locations which, according to him, would not enhance the building of a distinct organisational culture, adding that contacts had been made to ameliorate the situation, including a courtesy visit to the Minister of Federal Capital Territory  (FCT).

    The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Inter-Governmental Affairs, Alhaji Husseini Kangiwa, called on the Commission to make office space a priority and build it into its budget and bring in the National Assembly to back it up.

    He noted that an important agency like NSIWC that is at the heart of workers’welfare should have a befitting building.

    Meanwhile, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has concluded the process leading to the disbursement of subsidies to the six licensed Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) as part of its plans to boost broadband penetration and make it pervasive nationwide.

    This was part of the digital transformation agenda, which NCC has put in place for actualisation. The subsidy will augment the InfraCos’ capital expenditure (CAPEX).

  • Plateau tackles revenue theft, leakages to boost IGR

    Mr Arlat Dashe, Chairman, Plateau State Internal Revenue Service ( PSIRS ), said the state government was determined to boost its Internal Generated Revenue ( IGR ) by tackling revenue theft and leakages.

    Dashe disclosed this on Thursday in Jos, at the opening of a one-day workshop on tax matters organised for revenue generating Ministries, Departments and Agencies ( MDAs ) in the state.

    The theme of the workshop is: “Collaboration, synergy and compliance parameters: optimising internally generated revenue collection in Plateau for effective service delivery and development.”

    He said the Joint Revenue Committee set up by Mr Solomon Lalong, Plateau governor, observed poor and non-performance of revenue collection by some MDA’s, revenue leakages, abuse, misuse, fraudulent conversion and theft of government revenue.

    Dashe lamented the dismal performance of the MDAs in 2017 and urged them to take steps to harness, optimise and secure a leakage-free performance of their revenue targets under the 2018 budget.

    Dashe said the workshop was aimed at increasing the awareness of participants on the legal frame work and policy reforms in the area of tax administration in the state.

    Read Also: Sen. Useni declares interest in Plateau governorship race

    He said it was also meant to fully engage members of the State Executive Council and heads of MDAs on the needed collaboration to foster the needed synergy for prompt remittance of IGR.

    Lalong, who declared the workshop open, said it was timely and necessary to improve the IGR for the purpose of accelerating the much needed development of the state.

    Lalong, was represented by his deputy, Prof. Sonni Tyoden, at the workshop.

    Tyoden said the workshop would boost the state’s IGR as the successful execution of developmental projects could not be performed by mere wishes but through mobilisation of revenue for effective service delivery.

    NAN

  • 2018 Budget: Lawmaker defends NASS over delay

    A member of House of Representatives, Mr Nicholas Ossai ( Delta-APC ), on Wednesday urged Nigerians to hold the Executive accountable for the delay in the passage of 2018 Appropriation Bill.

    He told News men in Abuja that apart the Bill being late November, 2017, Ministries, Departments and Agencies ( MDAs ) had refused to go before relevant committees of the legislature to defend their budgets.

    Ossai, therefore, said that it was unfair for the Executive to blame the lawmakers for delay in passing the budget, insisting that it could not be approved without MDAs defending their needs as contained in it.

    According to him, the National Assembly cannot address issues regarding the Appropriation Bill in a hasty manner, particularly when the Executive that made the inputs in the budget are reluctant to come and defend them.

    On the intended January – December fiscal year, the lawmaker said “I don’t really agree with the executive’s assertion, whether budget year or not budget year.

    “The most critical issue is that the budget was brought late November, and so there was no way the National Assembly could have addressed the matters in the Bill in one month.

    “January to December is not supposed to be an issue but bringing the private sector to bear when budgeting is the issue.

    “This is because the economy is run not only from the public sector but also the private sector.

    “The executive ought to bring the budget in the first week of October to give three months for the legislature to address the issues critically, looking at the books and performance of preceding budget.’’

    “Sometimes you blame the executive because you invite them to come and expatiate on the budget items and they find it very difficult. I don’t know what they are hiding from the legislature.

    “The Constitution has given us power to be able to look at the Bill; we are representatives of the people and the executive is to implement what the people have prescribed.

    “I think to some extent, the National Assembly has been dutiful enough to its job by creating value for money because without scrutinizing, you won’t be able to see value for money,” Ossai added.

    According to him, if certain amount is budgeted, it is also necessary to know how it is utilised based on the prescription of the national assembly.

    “If you are the executive and have budgeted a sub-head of N10, you should be able to feed us that the N10 we gave you last time, you used it and to what extent.

    Read Also: Akerele urges NASS to review gender rights bill

    “If you can defend that very effectively, then there is no reason why the National Assembly cannot prescribe further N10 or even give more depending on what you have presented.

    “But, in a situation where the executive budget performance is eight per cent or sometimes, 20 per cent and you are bringing a higher figure in a new budget, the National Assembly will ask questions.

    “Those are the reasons why our constituencies want to know why most of the budgets are not well implemented, especially when revenue generating agencies have met their target according to approval.

    “So, these are the issues we want to know and critically examine so Nigerians can get value for money,” he said.

    Ossai said that though implementation of 2017 budget was quite low at the end of the year, it had gone up to about 50 per cent due to queries by the legislature.

    “Today, I can tell you that over 50 per cent of the 2017 budget has been implemented.

    “This is because of the critical assertion by the House of Representatives in particular; the executive had to rush and hasten implementation of the budget.

    “You can see that the representation of the people counts a lot in a democracy; without being critical about the last year’s budget, there was no way the executive would have implemented it.

    “So, Nigerians should be patient with the National Assembly; we are trying to create value for money,” he said.

    NAN

  • Fed Govt may stop MDAs salaries over payroll system default

    The Federal Government has threatened to stop the salaries of some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) or individual employees if they fail to comply with the Human Resource Module of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

    The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF), Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita issued a circular condemning failure of affected departments to update their records despite an earlier circular that required them to.

    “In addition, many MDAs are yet to send their structures for upload and the list of their IPPIS Role Players as per the circular under reference, thereby denying their employee’s access to the Portal for the record update,” the circular said in parts.

    According to her, the online record update is a key requirement for the implementation of the HR Module of IPPIS and must be completed by every employee of the Federal Government for his/her records to be maintained on the IPPIS platform.

    January 19 is deadline for affected MDAs to forward the soft copies of the required information to a specified online address.

    All Federal Government workers have until January 22 to update their records on www.verification.ippis.gov.ng.

    ”Please note that failure of any MDA and/or employee to comply with the content of this circular will lead to stoppage of the salary of the entire MDA and/or employee on the IPPIS platform,” the circular said.

  • RMAFC uncovers N115bn tax liabilities against FG, States MDAs

    RMAFC uncovers N115bn tax liabilities against FG, States MDAs

    The Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, (RMAFC) has uncovered over N115 billion tax liabilities established against Federal and States’ Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs).

    Also found enmeshed in tax liabilities are Local Government Councils across the nation.

    The RMAFC stumbled on this revelation following tax liabilities recovery exercise carried out by the Commission.

    According to a Press Statement signed by Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed, RMAFC’s Spokesperson, “the Commission was able to establish the total sum of N115, 811, 884,454.01 as tax liabilities in the first phase of the exercise covering the period between 2005 and 2015 spread across 30 States of the Federation.”

    Adamawa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Katsina and Kebbi States were given clean bills of health “as they are bereft of any tax liabilities. At the end of the exercise which is ninety per cent completed, an additional sum of N40 billion is expected” to be realized as tax liabilities against both federal and state MDAs.

    The Statement added that “all the States, LGCs and other Agencies so far covered have passionately pleaded for waiver of penalty and interest totaling N24,030,004,256.31 comprising N9,748,742,417.28 as penalty and N14,281,261,839.03 as interest respectively.”

    Ibrahim Mohammed said that “in the course of the exercise, it was discovered that some Federal Government Agencies domiciled in the States were not remitting Pay As You Earn (PAYE) to the state governments thus depleting their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) base.”

    In the same vein, RMAFC also “called on the Federal Government to reimburse some of the State Governments that executed Federal Government projects in their States so as to enhance their revenue profile.”

    The Commission also urged states like Bauchi, Cross River, Edo, Enugu and Rivers which are yet to participate in the exercise to do so in the spirit of equity and fair play since they continue to enjoy the proceeds of tax remitted by their counterparts.