No panic over Finance Bill ― Finance minister

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has asked Nigerians not to panic over provisions of the Finance Bill as passed by National Assembly.

A provision of the Bill that provoked apprehension among Nigerians is the one that stipulates every bank account holder to have a Tax Identification Number (TIN), failure of which such accounts would be frozen.

Addressing the press, on Thursday, to provide details of the 2020 budget of the Federal Government, the Finance minister said when it is eventually signed by the President, not every of its provisions will be implemented from January 1.

For instance, before the implementation of requirements for the presentation of TIN for the opening of bank account, the government would have to engage banks on the modality for implementation.

She said, “Until the finance bill is assented into law, the measures we have to take are just plans for now.

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“But we are confident that within this week, Mr President will have this bill from the National Assembly and he will normally ask various ministries to review and advise him before he signs.

“Our target is that we start the work on January 1 2020. Am not saying that every provision in the finance bill will take effect from January.

“We have seen in the papers where people say from January 1, you can’t operate your account without TIN number.

“It does not work that way. That is where we have to engage the commercial banks. The FIRS will engage the commercial banks and work out a modality of how this will be implemented.”

Ahmed said the Finance Bill has about 83 modifications, adding that several of these amendments are meant to improve the business environment, especially the small and medium scale businesses.

In the area of revenue performance, the finance minister put the government’s actual aggregate revenue as at the end of the third quarter at N4.25tn.

This, according to her, is 81 per cent of the pro-rata target.

Giving a breakdown of the revenue, she said proceeds from oil accounted N1.44tn, Company Income Tax collection was put at N595.27bn, Value Added Tax N81.36bn, Customs collections of N184.10bn.

She said, “Nigeria must mobilize significant resources to invest in human capital development and critical infrastructure Given the low revenue to GDP ratio currently at about seven per cent, we must pursue optimal revenue generation.

“I would like to seize this opportunity to call on Nigerians and prospective investors to support in solving Nigeria’s revenue generation problem.

“Indeed, some reforms will be tough but it must be done if we will look at the facts and be frank to ourselves.”