FG priotises staff salaries – Communications, Digital Economy Minister reveals
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Ibrahim Pantami has revealed how Federal Government collected taxes in advance from telecommunications companies to foot salaries.
According to Pantami, the 25bn approved by Federal Executive Council to replace infrastructure in the National Identity Management Commission had not been released owing to financial challenges.
The Minister noted that the current administration has prioritised payment of salaries to provision of infrastructure, revealing that the Ministry is satisfied in as much it for the general good.
He made this disclosure on Friday, in Gombe during a convocation lecture with the theme “Deployment of emerging technology to enhance the security tertiary institutions in Nigeria” marking the sixth-35th combined graduation ceremony (1991/1992 – 2020/2021), of the Federal College of Education (Technical).
Pantami said, “When I was given the privilege to supervise the NIMC last year, the database was just 42 million people from 2007 to 2020. In 13 years we were able to gather only 42 million, from that time to this year I have increased the data base, with all sense of humility to more than 67 million.
“From that time last year to today, no single Kobo has been released for us to do that, we are leveraging on existing infrastructure. We were able to come up with our innovative solution in which we increased enrolment centres in the country 1,600 to over 6,000 today.
“The Federal Executive Council has approved 25bn to replace the infrastructure of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), but till date no single Kobo has been released. Why? Because of the challenge of recession we were before now we have exited recession. Government has prioritise paying salaries and others as priority.
“Many people may not know sometimes in Government We have to collect tax from telecommunications companies in advance in order to pay salary and to share the money in the Federation account. During lock down even taxes were collected in advance in the sector to pay salary.”
He said the progression in the ministry’s turn over since assumption of office has witnessed over 600 percent increase in two years, stressing that the chunk of revenue comes from licensing, tax.
“In the previous years before I was appointed, the annual collection of tax and the rest within the sector is around 500-600bn within two years but in my first two years in office I was able to increase that by over 1trillion naira this is through spectrum, licensing, tax.
“It has never happened in the history of the country, in some cases we increased revenue generation from the sector by over 600 percent and most of the money is being spent in paying salaries to the extent that the ministry and the parastatal generating the money doesn’t have money to execute other projects but we are comfortable to generate for others to spend,” Pantami added.
