The NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management,
Adeleke Adewolu, inaugurated the 17-member committee on behalf of the
Commission’s Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta, and the Executive
Chairman of the FIRS, Mr. Muhammad Nami, at the NCC’s Board Room in Abuja on
Tuesday, May 10, 2022.
The inauguration of the committee, comprising six officials
of NCC and eleven officials of FIRS, was carried out with senior officials of
NCC and those of the tax agency led by its Coordinating Director for Compliance
Support Group, Dr. Dick Irri, who represented the FIRS’ Executive Chairman,
Muhammad Nami at the event.
While inaugurating the Committee on behalf of the heads of
the two agencies, Adewolu stated that the terms of reference (ToR) of the
Committee include: review the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between
the NCC and the FIRS on June 9, 2020; and carry out inter-agency interaction on
the implementation of the NCC’s Revenue Assurance System (RAS), to ensure that
it incorporates the needs of FIRS to the extent that RAS can remain the sole
interface with telecom service providers’ networks vis-Ã -vis the Tax
Authority’s information needs from the telecoms sector.
Given the Committee’s composition and with the extensive
experience and commitment of its members – which had informed their selection
by the agencies – Adewolu stated that the managements of NCC and the FIRS
expected no less than an excellent output from the Committee, tasking them to
work together harmoniously and in the overall national interest.
Also in his comments, Dr. Dick Irri, who led the FIRS’s
delegation to the inauguration, advised the Committee to take the assignments
very seriously.
“I would like to task you to take this assignment as a
national matter as we expect the two agencies to work in harmony, collaborate
effectively and have a warm handshake that will make this synergy between the
two agencies a great example of collaboration between Federal Government
agencies towards enhancing fiscal governance in Nigeria,” he said.
The decision to set up the Committee was one of the major
outcomes of the meeting between the FIRS and the NCC on March 8, 2022,
organised at the instance of the Honourable Minister of Communications and
Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Pantami, to discuss the request by the FIRS for
data and documents from the telecoms industry for enhancing national revenues
from the sector.
The inauguration is a significant achievement, as it deepens
the strategic collaboration between the two government agencies in the pursuit
of their statutory objectives.
The activities of the NCC and the FIRS are acknowledged as
pivotal to the achievement of sustainable revenue and growth projections of the
Federal Government.
In this regard, the telecoms sector has sustained a
relatively high contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the years –
ending the fourth quarter of 2021 at 12.6 per cent.
Besides, the FIRS recently acknowledged that some telecom
licensees contribute a significantly high percentage of total national tax
revenue.
It is expected that the Joint Committee will enable both
organisations to further optimise revenues for the Federal Government from the
telecoms, digital economy and adjacent sectors of the economy.
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