By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has revealed that the much-celebrated Whistleblower Policy of the Federal Government has failed and already the Federal Executive Council
(FEC) has approved new Finance Bill.
The Minister stated this while briefing State House Correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting held at Presidential Villa, Abuja on Wednesday.
Said she: “The Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning presented a number of memos today (Wednesday). The first is the draft Whistleblower Bill for 2022. This memo has been reviewed by counsel and approved with a provision to ensure alignment with the Evidence Act.
“The purpose of operationalizing and putting in place a whistleblower bill is to strengthen the fight against corruption and to also enable protection for whistleblowers that provide information for use by by government.
“As you know since 2016, the council had approved the setting up of the Presidential Initiative of Continuous Audit (PICA). PICA has been working in partnership with EFCC, ICPC, DSS, NFIU as well as of the office of the Attorney General of the Federation.
“We noticed that the Whistleblower Policy response has lost momentum. We embarked on engagements in the six geo-political zones and one of the main outcome that we found is that people are concerned about their safety as a result of providing information.
“So this bill is critical to ensure the effectiveness of the retention of the whistle policy.
Speaking further Mrs. Ahmed disclosed that her ministry also presented a second memo to Council requesting for its approval for the Finance Bill 2022 that is designed to support the implementation of the 2023 National Budget.
Said she: “The second level I present to Council today is a request for approval of Council for the Finance Bill 2022 that is designed to support the implementation of the 2023 budget.
“If you recall at the public presentation of the budget to the National Assembly, by His Excellency Mr. President, the President has committed to the parliament that a 2022 Finance bill will be submitted to the parliament by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to support the implementation of the 2023 budget.
So we have been working on this bill and have done a lot of consultations”.
According to the Minister, “the Bill we presented before Council today has five focus areas including tax equity reforms, climate change and green growth provisions, job creation and economic growth reforms, reforming tax incentives as well as generating revenue enhancing tax administration”.
She stated that the purpose of the Tax Equity Reforms is to combat tax evasion and aggressive tax planning practices that some companies operating in Nigeria are involved but also enabling the utilization of ICT tools and using international best practice to assess taxpayers tax on a fair reasonable basis.
On the Climate Change she argued that the Climate Change Green Growth focus will complement non fiscal reforms that are designed to reduce greenhouse emissions and also to facilitate domestic and international investment in climate adaptation, as well as mitigation and also to enhance green growth and create jobs.
The third focus area she said was Job Creation and economic growth is also designed to complement the ease of doing business and other reforms to support capital formation by the private sector as well as to foster enabling business environmental for micro, small and medium enterprises for youth as well as women in businesses. It will also help to enhance the performance of businesses that are in the FineTech, the ICT, entertainment, fashion, sports as well as the art space.
Meanwhile, Minister of Finance revealed that this Finance Bill is amending a number of fiscal laws, including the capital gains tax, company income tax, customs excise tariff Act, Federal Inland Revenue Service Act, personal income tax, stamp duties act, tertiary education tax, VAT act and Insurance Act.
Others are Nigerian Police Trust Fund Act, as well as the National Agency for Engineering Act NASANI, Finance control management act, as well as the fiscal responsibility.
So with this approval from Council, Mr. President will be conveying to the National Assembly, a request for the consideration of this bill.
