The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr Babatunde Fowler, has stated that any staff member of FIRS found guilty of exploiting the N5 billion Duty Tour Allowance (DTA), would be punished accordingly.
“On the DTA, it claimed that some members of staff applied for and were granted allowances to travel for official trips. Some are alleged not to have travelled for the number of days, for which they were slated.”
He debunked all claims of missing taxes: Mr Fowler, who made the statement during an interview in Abuja on Wednesday, debunked all allegations that money generated as taxes were missing from the agency’s coufers.
Taxes are paid through CBN: He further explained that all taxes are paid directly into the federation account through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“The FIRS does not have access to taxpayers money. Its operations are funded by an appropriation of the national assembly through monthly remittances by the federation accounts allocation committee (FAAC).”
The EFCC has been involved in the case: Fowler went further to disclose that the FIRS has a working relationship with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and that the alleged exploitation is under investigation by the EFCC.
“The EFCC is looking into that. Sometimes, it is good to have a third party investigate matters like this instead of having a staff member investigate another staff member.
“Investigation by a third party is more objective. FIRS has since taken steps to remediate this.”
They EFCC already has suspects: He said the EFCC already apprehended some senior management and junior FIRS officials for being involved in the scam.
Some of the apprehended suspects were reported to have been paid as much as N101 million, N97m, N89m, N84m, N65m, N52m and N46m as DTA.
