 Welcome back. The National Assembly has tasked the Revenue Generating Agencies of Government in Nigeria to produce three trillion, narrow annually. Now this was revealed by the Senate President Ahmed Lawan. He emphasized that they need to improve the internally generated revenue of the federal government. He said the Senate will be stiff on generating more and more revenue in order to ease borrowing. Now the Senate President urged agencies who can't meet up with the target to reach the Senate in order to get solutions that will enable them to meet the target. Also, Senator Solomon Adiola, the Chairman of the Committee on Finance, asked the federal government to minimize borrowing but to fund projects in Nigeria. We have joined in us to discuss this. Olajede, an economist and Björdung, show me a political analyst. Good evening to you gentlemen. Thanks for being part of this particular discourse. What's that with you, Bola Hon? Good evening to you. Good evening. All right, Bola Hon, over time we have talked about this issue of internally generated revenue at different fora. Right now the Senate is actually taking it very seriously and it is tasking revenue generating agencies to get about three trillion dollars to the federal government's boss annually. Some people seem to think this is like a toll order. In your opinion, do you really see this particular objective as something that is achievable, judging by the body language and of course the histories that we've had with revenue generating agencies in the country? Well, I'm glad that the National Assembly is pitching in on this. And that is because it may be new in the political discussion or in the policy generated, but it is not new to some segments of the government. For example, I am aware that the budget office of the Federation has been trying to see how they can make something like this happen. So you have revenue generating agencies of government who has not been entirely transparent with the money they're remitting to the federal office. Some of them are also having that there are legal issues with some of that because if the law says you generate revenue, but you spend revenue, you spend part of it for your own operations. Where do you draw the lines? And those are those ones that are constrained by certain legalities. We need to look at those laws and see if they are resending it for any amendment. Otherwise, if you say I can generate the money by most, I can spend it as well. I might as well generate it and spend it and give you the change. The alternative is the money that comes in goes in first, I remit it then, you give me money for the one that I will use for my operations. It's not a hand on hand, but is it possible? Yes, it is possible. We have a lot of this revenue generating agencies that are not pulling their wheels right now. Alright, let's start trying to break it down because over time, when we talk about revenue generating agencies, what comes to mind first is agency soldiers and the Nigerian customs service, the immigration, the maritime, you know, NAFDAQ and of course we have the tax collectors, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS. Let's talk about them for one minute, you know. Over time, we've been talking about how to, you know, get more people into the tax net. But what we see when it comes to policy, the federal government bring that up, different policies that would actually, you know, impose more tax on the average resident. How do we begin to, you know, know where to draw the line and meet up some sort of a balance so that we can generate, you know, this required revenue in terms of taxation for the federal government and of course not break the necks of Nigerians. One of the very important part of generating revenue from taxation is that the people who win the most, the top earners, should be made to bear their fair burden of the taxation. As it is in Nigeria today, that category of earners, they are not carrying their weight. You take the US as my favorite example, the top 1% earner in the US pay almost 40% of the entire personal income taxation in that country. How much do our own top earners, how much do they pay? If you go and ask for the tax records of some of the people that are contesting for gubernatorial, for presidential election in this country today, spending billions, ask them to let us know how much they are paying taxes for the past three years. You will be embarrassed. So the top earners are not paying is one of the problems. The second part is what you mentioned, which is bringing more people into the tax net. And I think there are a lot of effort that are going on in that space. Some of them are being done via the banks. Remember there was a time we were asked to go and update your KYC information with the banks. You know, people felt it was also going to cost some trouble and the mellowdown on that. But a good way to bring more people into that tax net is via their bank account. Another way is all this other identification that we are collecting left and right. But you see there is a bigger problem. And that bigger problem is the capacity to even collect. As we speak today, while people are saying they are overtaxed, some of these taxes in very significant amount never reach the government office. So they are collected, but they don't get to the government office. So they disappear in between the collector and the government regime. So the efficiency of collection is a very important part that we must also bring to bear if we are going to revoke the transition revenue in this country. Otherwise, that guy that comes to ask you for a radio license of $50,000 and he is given $5,000 without receipt and he goes away. I know people today that they are not access that they will pay to government and they will say there are no receipts, no revenue receipts. I don't want to point to this specific example I encountered very recently about $10,500 with no receipts, no revenue receipts. So we have to be able to collect efficiently to revoke our tax collection. Otherwise, it's the same belt, the same narrow belt of people who are in structured employment that will continue to carry the tax burden of this country because they don't have an option. It is deducted from their salary before you give them the net. So they pay automatically. All right. Thank you, Bologna. We also have a Biodo show me joining us in this course. Good evening to you, Biodo. Good evening. All right. Let's get your frank opinion concerning this issue of internally generated revenue. As it is right now, Sanity is un-tasking revenue generating them agencies to remit at least $3 trillion annually. Given what we know of these agencies and judging by the fact that over time they always want to come up with excuses, do you think that these agencies can meet up with this target and again, have they actually been very transparent when it comes to the revenues they generate to the federal government coffers? Well, there are two angles to this issue. In the first instance, we are referring to agencies of government and prostitutes. One, are they desiring the agencies we want to collect revenue? Are they desirable or are they so close to needs? I will tell you exactly where. If you go through the Orozias report, which recommended that over 200 federal government agencies are simply one go for the boys. They are duplication of existing agencies. Half of the funds which we are trying to look for now to generate revenue through the agencies are actually being used currently being expanded on this duplicity of agencies, which in any case needs to be spread. The National Assembly got its focus wrong from day one. It's not about generating new money. The first thing is first, we need to eliminate wastage within the system. Where you have duplication of agencies, where clearly it has been identified in the Orozias report, with the federal government, what they need to do is to first streamline the existing agencies. They will be saving at least 1.5 trillion naira out of the 3 trillion they are looking for. That's the first starting point before moving to charge those agencies to generate more revenue. Now, in relation to agencies which are in existence, and then they are expected to generate more revenue. We also need to get the balance right when it comes to revenue generation. One, let me give you, I'll give you two copious examples. One is customs, and the other is fiscal and urban planning development. Both are revenue generating agencies for governments in Nigeria. If you tax imported goods so much, it will get to a point that more of the goods supposed to be delivered to Nigeria will be delivered to neighboring countries, like Benayantogu, Ghana. They will benefit from a low tariff on imported goods, and Nigerians will bring them in anyway, under the Ekwa Treaty. Don't forget there's freedom of movement at goods, you know, of people and goods for three months. These goods will be brought into the country. And therefore, if you are not competitive, if you overprice yourself or you pressure the agencies to charge so much, you will end up realizing that you will not get that revenue, because yes, you get a high revenue, but you won't get enough people to pay that revenue, because they will have diverted all their goods to neighboring ports. In the case of fiscal and urban planning, if you increase the cost of approved planning, you know, to get approval for building properties, if it becomes prohibitive, what you realize is that at the end of the day, people are not able to complete their houses. Now, what happens to the land use charge, which are supposed to be collected on all the new opportunity that we know over that period of time. So it is not a state court issue to say, oh, Senate can save, we want to generate three trillion, because you cannot just decree, it is not what you can decree, it's a function of the economy. And because it's a function of the economy, they need to take account of certain variables, you know, before they can do, say what they're saying, they have to eliminate waste from the system while making efforts to generate more revenue. People tend to focus more on income tax, personal income tax, but that's not the biggest revenue generated, the generation for the country. What about the company tax? What is happening to it? We have had of companies going billions, and then later government end up settling this thing behind it closed, or we know it, but then some other cases. And then they are settling for it, you know, you know, there is huge problem within the country, not only in terms of the waste, in terms of generating revenue, even in terms of arbitration, when there's a All right, thank you. Beaudu, we'll come back to you. Let's talk to Bologna. I need to get more reactions for you. Beaudu has talked about the issue of not just generating revenue, he talked about how it is a function of the economy. He also talked about the need for the elimination of wasteages and the scrapping of redundant agencies. You know, at this meeting that was held at the Senate, and of course, these revenue generating agencies, we had likes of the Luth, we had the Nigerian Custom Service, we had them NAFDAQ, we had NIMASA, they also had the customs and the immigration. Over time, looking at all of these agencies, how do you rate their capacity? I'm talking to you now, Bologna, and do you also agree with Beaudu's postulation about eliminating wasteages and, of course, not wanting to duplicate these existing agencies? Well, wasteaging governance, or in the bureaucracy, is on the expenditure side of things, mostly. After we have generated the revenue, what do we spend it on? That is where that goes to. But from the generation of the revenue units, which is where all this agency you're mentioning come into a place, the agencies themselves, we've had calls about even how they spend money. Remember when I first started on this topic, I spoke about the fact that the law enables this agency to spend money too, so they collect revenue, they spend it on their own operations. Now, if you look at some of the budgets presented by these agencies, you will see the more reason why a lot of Nigerians say there are a lot of wasteage, wasteages that are going into those expenditure. So all sort of items are budgeted for, sometimes at ridiculous prices, and we need to be able to deal with that. But that is on one side, like I said. The real areas of emphasis is collection efficiency, which is not there, as we speak. Corruption that is involved in that collection in itself, the minister showed me, he had spoken about how some things are settled out of the normal prescribed way that we're supposed to set some of these things. It has been going on, it is still going on. We also have issues of exemptions in which certain organizations will leverage on what is going on, on certain interventions to seek. All right, we seem to have lost them. Wallaha will try and reconnect with him shortly, but then will try as much as possible to do more discourse on this particular issue, because it is something that affects all of us as a people and, of course, as a nation. We'll take yet another break, and when we return, I'll be giving you my take. Now, one of the responsibilities of our leaders, especially that of the president and the governor, is to protect the lives of the people who voted Himohar into power. However, these days, some of the decisions our leaders take seem selfish. For the longest time now, the country has been grown in under the weight of insecurity. The kidnappings, killings, looting, and more have caused many Nigerians to cry out like never before. Several political and security stakeholders have called for state police, not because they want to seize power from the central government, but because they believe it would help out. It was reported that three weeks into this year 2020, almost 500 Nigerians had lost their lives. The majority of them from Niger state. Every day, we wake up to news and report about kidnappings and killings, and we think all is well. No, all is not well. At least if state police it is rejected, something even more serious should be created to ensure the security of the country receives sanity. You can continue to hold Nigerians and their safety to ransom, because you want to hold onto power. Take lessons from countries like Burkina Faso and Mali, our African neighbors. And to the issue of internally generated revenue for the government, it is one that has resounded over the years. We cannot continue to make budgetary allocations hinged on revenues from debt sources. If we keep this up, over time the nation may just be more engaged in the future of its citizens. This step taken by the National Assembly is one done in the right direction. Just how do we fund over 17.126 trillion Naira 2022 budget? Another government had taken steps to get more revenue from taxation through the finance law of 2021, but we cannot continue to overburden the citizens without commensurate returns. They should rather plan on bringing more people into the tax net. However, if we need to task revenue generating agencies to look inwards, I feel the lawmakers should be commended. And that's plus politics. I am Justin. I'll cut on your return again tomorrow. Bye for now.