Ministry recovered N57bn MDAs’ debts – Director

The Federal Ministry of Finance has been able recovered almost N57 billion, from the N5.2tn debts owed by ministries, departments and agencies to the Federal Government.

Aisha Omar, the Director, Special Projects, Federal Ministry of Finance, revealed this in Enugu on Tuesday, during a one-day workshop on the Federal Government Debt Recovery Drive, through the Project Lighthouse Programme for the South-East zone.

Declaring the event open, Omar, represented by the Deputy Director of Special Projects in the ministry, Mrs Bridget Molokwu, disclosed that the debts came to the spotlight from data aggregated from over 5,000 debtors across more than 93 MDAs.

Though she claimed more recoveries had been made, she could, however, not provide the data.

She said the ministry could account for the official figure of N57bn, adding that the debts were in the form of liabilities to the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

Molokwu said the ministry also received refunds from companies that failed to deliver on projects for which payment had been made.

Other refunds, according to her, were unpaid credit facilities granted to both corporate entities and individuals by the Bank of Industry and Bank of Agriculture, Judgment Debt in favour of the government and debts owed Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate by insurance companies, amongst others.

“Generally, revenue loopholes have been aided by poor information sharing and enforcement.

“It may interest you to note that the ministry, through the consolidation efforts of the Debt Analytics and Reporting Application, has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately N5.2tn.

“The debt aggregation effort is still ongoing. Currently, approximately N57bn has been recovered so far from this amount, due to concerted efforts on the part of stakeholders and the Federal Government,” she said.

She added that data from Project Lighthouse revealed that many companies and individuals who owed government agencies and refused to honour their obligations were still being paid.

She claimed, this was done through government portals like GIFMIS and Treasury Single Account, due to lack of visibility over these transactions.

She claimed that in order to achieve the debt recovery goal, the Federal Ministry of Finance launched “Project Lighthouse,” which allowed for the collection of relevant financial and economic data from several organizations that had not previously shared data.