Through a number of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, or MDAs, the Federal Government would enforce the recovery of N5.2 trillion due by over 5,000 debtors, according to Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning.
This was revealed yesterday in Abuja during the introduction of the Project Lighthouse Debt Analytics & Reporting Platform by Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning.
According to Ahmed, the debt was discovered in accordance with a 2019 Finance Circular that required all MDAs and Federal Government Owned Enterprises (FGOEs) to make the government’s credit portfolio available in all of these organizations.
In the past 1.5 years, N53.5 billion has been recovered, she disclosed.
“The FMFBNP issued a directive on September 26, 2019, to all government agencies in an attempt to aggregate all government debts across all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in order to have a single window on the credit profile of government,” Ahmed stated, following a cursory review of alleged significant leaks in government.
Following the publication of the Finance Circular, the Ministry was able to collect massive debts of about N5.2 trillion through the project’s consolidation efforts.
Data compiled from more than 5,000 debtors in ten MDAs brought these debts to light. Working along with the Accountant General’s Office of the Federation (OAGF), Through the use of the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) as a recovery contact point, we have successfully recovered N53.5 billion during the past 12 to 18 months.
However, a Debt Recovery Application has been developed to be overseen by the new Debt Recovery Unit in order to streamline the project’s ongoing efforts. By standardizing debt records across all MDAs in the nation, the Debt Recovery Unit will leverage the project consultants’ efforts to give the government current information about its credit status, give debtors a platform to view and offset debt in a safe and easy way, and fortify the institutional framework for managing and enforcing the Federal Debt Recovery plan.
To ensure the success of the plan, the Minister tasked federal government MDA and FGOE officials with collaborating with her ministry.
“It is important to note that the effectiveness of this platform for our revenue generation endeavor will rely on your collaboration and dedication in supplying high-quality and pertinent debt-related data to fill the platform,” she stated.
Additionally, we think that the intelligence that Project Lighthouse will be generating will be extremely beneficial to your organization.
In order to achieve this, I would like to use this occasion to ask all FGOEs and MDAs to update their debtor lists monthly in comparison to the Project Lighthouse debt recovery portfolio. The creation of an institutional structure for fiscal environment management, enforcement, and recovery is also included in this.
