policy abuja—The Federal Government yesterday dismissed National Assembly’s claim that only 15 percent of capital vote in the 2017 budget had been released so far. Are your ready to blow the Whistle? This was one of the fallouts of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting, presided over by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting, also said the federal government was expecting $1 million from its tax amnesty policy. Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi ADEOSUN On the reason behind the abysmal release of only 15 percent of the capital vote in 2017 budget as alleged by NASS, Adeosun said: “That figure cannot be correct because last year, we released N1.3 trillion. So if you compute that as a representative of the total budget it’s definitely not 15 percent. “It is not correct. So I don’t know where you got that figure but I have to look at the table, I haven’t seen the table to which you are referring. “What we have released so far for capital since the budget was passed in June is N450 billion. We just raised as you know, another $2 billion to fund this budget and those releases will start going out as from next week.” On tax targets On the tax amnesty policy, Adeosun said the Federal Government had already got $110 million from two companies, while targeting $1 billion. She said that the Federal Government Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme, VAIDS, was a platform designed to provide tax payers with the opportunity to regularise their tax payments in relation to their previous payments Adeosun, who was flanked by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, also explained how the government paid whistleblowers, saying payment were made only to informants directly after three months when there was no court issue on the matter. She further denied allegations from the National Assembly that it was only 15 percent of the Capital Project budgetary allocation for the 2017 budget that was released. She said that she briefed FEC, on the progress made by the government under the tax amnesty and that her memo was well received. She said: “I presented a memo on Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme for approval for the sum of N1.501 billion to cover the National Advertising Campaign for nine months which is press, radio, online, television including center spreads. “I also briefed Council on Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme, VAIDS on tax amnesty, it us very well received. “We have already started to get declarations from companies who are looking to regularise their tax status. Specifically, so far we have two companies with $110 million dollars who are ready to declare and pay. “We have people who are ready to declare and pay. We sent out over 500 letters under the first batch, but there are thousand of Nigerians being targeted but the first 500 letters have gone out to those who we think based on our data are ready to declare their taxes, offering them a window to regularise. “We have started to get responses back. We are interfacing with State Governors where people are asking for time to pay.” On whistleblower Commenting on the whistle-blower policy and the amount to be paid, the Finance Minister said, “The whistle-blower policy as you know, the procedure is, once we have obtained final forfeiture, there is what we call a period of waiting and seeing just to make sure that there is no legal challenge to the forfeiture and then we begin to process the payment. “So Ikoyi Whistle-blower was part of November’s batch, the payment is due to be made, it is ready, it has been approved. “The total batch, which includes the Osborn Road, Ikoyi is N421, 313,595 and this is for the November batch and is ready for payment. The only condition we now need to fulfil is that the money has to be paid to the personal account of the person that who gave us the information. We won’t pay a lawyer or a company, we have to pay the person who signed the agreement. “That is the procedure, we are just waiting for the BVM data of that particular one, all the others have given us, the money is ready and approved. “If we get the Court judgement, you need to give us about three months from the court judgement because we have to wait and make sure there is no legal challenge so that nobody will come back later and say there is a controversy in the money. Every month we process these batches, it is done confidentially, we have to protect whistle-blower. We also make sure that all applicable taxes are paid ahead. “We get in touch with the state government where the person lives and we get them to compute the tax and we pay the tax directly and issue a receipt. So nobody can come after the person afterward because that process could also expose the identity and put them at risk. So we built in these procedures to protect the Whistleblower.”
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