Minister, RMAFC Tango Over Finance Bill 2021

• As Mbam rejects proposed provisions in FIRS Establishment Act

BY COBHAM NSA – The Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed and the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) are on collision course over proposed amendments to the Finance Bill 2021 currently before the National Assembly.

While the Minister maintains that RMAFC’s constitutional role only covers the monitoring of accruals and disbursements of revenue from the Federation Account, the Commission is insisting that proposed amendments to the FIRS Establishment Act in the Bill will infringe on its performance and statutory mandate delivery.

Speaking at the Public Hearing on the Finance Bill 2021 before the Senate Committees on Finance, Custom, Excise & Tariff, and Trade and Investment, on Tuesday, Mrs Ahmed said in the circumstance, the RMAFC’s powers do not extend to revenue collection as erroneously perceived.

The Minister, who was responding to observations and recommendations to the Finance Bill by the RMFAC, noted that: “The functions of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission is provided under Paragraph 32 (a-e) of Part 1 to the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution [of the Federal Republic of Nigeria].

“It is limited to the monitoring of the accruals to and disbursement of revenue from the Federation Account. The Commission is also empowered to advise the Federal and State Governments on fiscal efficiency.

“There is no constitutional role that provides for RMAFC to collect revenues. We are only further empowering the FIRS to do what the law has mandated it to do, its constitutional role.”

Adopting the Minister’s position, Executive Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami said the RMAFC’s mandate was not exclusive, as the Budget Office; Office of the Attorney General of the Federation; and the Auditor General, among others, have concurrent mandates to “monitor, account for and audit revenues”.

According to Nami, only FIRS is vested with the sole mandate of collecting and administering tax in Nigeria, adding; “Section 162(1) of 1999 constitution, suggests that the Federal Government is to maintain the Federal Account but that account is to be funded by four agencies of Government. These are the Federal Inland Revenue Service; the Nigeria Customs; the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR); and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

“What the Federal Executive Council and RMAFC do with the money that four of us collect is not an issue for us because we do not have a responsibility to directly monitor the disbursement of what we have collected.

“We are not aware of any provision that mandates the RMAFC to make daily, monthly, or annual returns to the Federation Account. I want to remind us that RMAFC’s mandate remains monitoring revenue, particularly the operating surplus of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies because RMAFC, to the best of our understanding, is not a revenue-generating unit.

“The RMAFC Act Cap 17 LFN 2004 empowers them to demand and obtain regular and relevant information from NNPC, Nigeria Customs, FIRS, CBN, and Federal Ministry of Finance. But that provision has not mandated RMAFC to take over the roles of any or all of these agencies and the Federal Ministry of Finance. Monitoring is not the same as collecting and administering.”

However, the RMAFC Chairman, Engineer Elias Mbam had, while raising objections to provisions of the Finance Bill 2021, particularly expressed reservations about the proposed amendments to the FIRS Establishment Act stating that the FIRS shall be the primary agency of the Federal Government responsible for the administration, assessment, collection, accounting and enforcement of taxes and levies due to the Federation and the Federal Government or any of its agencies.

Mbam observed that the provisions “will infringe on the Commission’s constitutional mandate of monitoring accruals to and disbursement of revenue from the Federation Account as well as revenue payable into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.”

Consequently, he maintained that adopting such amendment would “foreclose or prevent RMAFC from monitoring tax revenue from FIRS.”