Buhari queries FIRS chief Fowler over worsening revenue collection

Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler is in the eyes of the storm as he has been queried by President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari on poor revenue collections.

Fowler, a close ally of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu has been given up till tomorrow, August 19, 2019 to respond to the query dated August 8, 2019.

Titled; “RE: Budgeted FIRS Collections and actual collections” and personally signed by the Chief of Staff, the query, a copy of which was made available to WazobiaReporters miffed at the poor revenue collections between 2015 and 2018.

It reads; “Your attached letter (FIRS/EC/ECW/0249/19/027 dated 26 July 2019) on the above subject matter refers.

“We observed significant variances between the budgeted collections and actual collections for the period 2015 to 2018. Accordingly, you are kindly invited to submit a comprehensive variance analysis explaining the reasons for the variances between budgeted and actual collections for each main tax item for each of the years 2015 to 2018.
“Further more, we observed that the actual collections for the period 2015 to 2017 were significantly lower worse than what was collected between 2012 and 2014. Accordingly, you are kindly to explain the reason for the poor collections.

“You are kindly invited to respond by 19 August 2019.”