Tinubu advisory council wants Customs, NIMASA, FIRS merged, illegal refineries formalised

Tinubu advisory council wants Customs, NIMASA, FIRS merged, illegal refineries formalised

 

The Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA and the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS may soon be merged.

This was the recommendation forwarded to President Bola Tinubu by his Policy Advisory Council.

The recommendation is contained in the report submitted by the advisory council on Friday.

The council proposed the merger in order to enable an efficient collection of all direct and indirect taxes, as well as levies on behalf of the Federal Government.

The council outlined the removal of fuel subsidy, sale or concession of select government assets, transition to a transparent and unified foreign exchange rate system, deepening tax collection and optimization of operating expenditure to reduce cost as urgent tasks to be pursued by the President within the first 100 days in office.

Members of the Policy Advisory Council are Senator Tokunbo Abiru (chair), Dr Yemi Cardoso, Sumaila Zubairu and Dr Doris Anite.

The report partly read, “Passage of an Emergency Economic Reform Bill to grant the President special powers to drive the economic reform agenda to declare a state of emergency in revenue generation and national security.

“Transform FIRS, Customs, NIMASA, etc into the Nigerian Revenue Service to collect all direct and indirect taxes and levies on behalf of the Federal Government.

“Reform the Central Bank of Nigeria, implement civil service reform/ Oronsaye Report.

“Make interim leadership appointments (to be ratified later by the National Assembly) and make temporary increases in fiscal circuit-breakers, e.g.debt limits, later ratified by the National Assembly.”

The council’s report, which focuses on fiscal and monetary policies, industry, trade and capital market reforms, emphasised that changes in the Central Bank of Nigeria and temporary increases in fiscal circuit breakers such as debt limits would help achieve N1tn Gross Domestic Product growth and over 50 million jobs for citizens in eight years.

The 90-page document further proposed that reforms in the CBN will help achieve about $50bn-$60bn in external reserves, with a monthly inflow of at least $6bn-$8bn from export earnings and other forms of capital inflow, to support the policy at an exchange rate of N500-N600/$.

On fiscal policies to be implemented, the council advised on the need to achieve a domestic refining capacity of two million barrels per day, while creating economic opportunity for the host communities.

They also proposed one-off Personal Income Tax reliefs for low-income earners for up to one year as non-cash palliatives to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal.

Part of the report read, “Ramp up production capacity to four million barrels from offshore and onshore assets within four years and grow crude oil revenue and savings into ECA and NSIA.

“Formalise illegal refineries and encourage modular refineries to create economic opportunity for the host communities.

“Aggressively grow domestic refining capacity to 2 million barrels per day in the next 8 years, including modular refineries.”