The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee has warned the Chairman, of Federal Inland Revenue (FIRS), Mr Zacch Adedeji against his alleged disregard to appear before the committee on invitation.
The committee said that Adedeji’s actions amounted to contempt of parliament.
Rep. Bamidele Salam, Chairman, PAC, said this at the resumed investigative hearing of revenue leakages in Abuja on Thursday.
The chairman, while reading the riot act against the FIRS chairman, said that this was the fourth time the committee would be inviting the FIRS chairman but failed to show up.
According to him, in addition to writing to him officially, we have also made sure that such letters were delivered personally to his mailbox and his WhatsApp number.
“And we condemn and describe it as irresponsible and arrogant, and we tell him that there will be consequences if he continues this contempt of his parliament.
He said that several letters had been written to him without responses, adding that the value-added tax that the federal government should be collecting on Remitta had not been collected by FIRS.
He said some VAT from the revenue collected by Remitta ought to have gone to the FIRS, but added that they would rather add the VAT together and share it with the CBN, Bank, and Remitta.
He said, “by the time we finished our reconciliation, the money would be in the hundreds of billions, adding that this was what they were asking the FIRS to come and collect, but the service had refused to show up.
Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was created in 1943. Before that time, its functions had been performed by the Inland Revenue Department of British West Africa. The Board of Inland Revenue was created in 1958, and the service gained autonomy with the passing of the FIRS (Establishment) Act 13 of 2007.
NAN
