Isaac Anumihe
The Federal Government has engaged the services of about 100 revenue consultants to block areas of leakages in the revenue from the mining sector, with a view to shoring up earnings from the sector.
The consultants, who would be deployed to the six geo-political zones of the country in the coming weeks, are to examine financial and production records of companies involved in mining activities in the last six years, to determine whether appropriate royalties were remitted to the Federal Government.
Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who disclosed the new arrangement yesterday during the opening of the three-day induction and training for the revenue consultants in Abuja, said the main target of the ministry is to ensure that the Federation Account gets its fair due in royalties and taxes.
The project tagged, “Revenue Optimisation and Verification (ROV) Project”, Fayemi said it would assist in blocking leakages in the mining sector, thereby positioning the sector to achieve its set agenda of contributing significantly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Our expectation of this project is that the ministry would emerge as a lead revenue agency for the Federal Government of Nigeria, in line with the growth projections of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which recognises the mining sector as one of the country’s most promising sectors, and acknowledges that its contribution to GDP doubled from N52 billion in 2010 to N103 billion in 2015. The ERGP further projects that revenue from the mining sector would grow from N103 billion (2015) to N141 billion (2020) at an average annual growth rate of 8.54 per cent (2017-2020),” he said.
In a statement, Fayemi said he is optimistic that the ministry would surpass these targets, as all stakeholders work collaboratively to ensure the success of the ROV Project, resulting in improved levels of voluntary compliance of operators.
The minister admitted that leakages in government revenue was a big challenge in the mining sector, a development the ministry was determined to address with the ROV Project, following its approval by the National Economic Council (NEC).
He said: “The ROV Project is an initiative of our ministry, pursuant to one of our core mandates, which is to significantly increase the contribution of the mining sector to our sovereign revenue.
“Indeed, leakages in government revenue remains a big challenge in the sector, which we are working collaboratively with other government entities and stakeholders to fix. We have given considerable thought to this challenge and come up with a number of strategies to tackle it, one of whose launch we are witnessing today.
“I am therefore pleased to announce that following the approval of NEC, we are today inaugurating a new model of revenue generation and collection in the mining sector. This entails the engagement of professional revenue consultants who would work with our ministry’s mining officers to identify revenue leakages in the system.”