The House of Representatives Committee on Finance is at pains that a whopping N72billion of over N80billion generated from the issuance of international passports and other services by the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) is lost to foreign and other technical partners of the Nigerian Immigration Service.
This was made known when the NIS Comptroller General, Mohammed Babandede appeared before the Mr James Faleke-led Committee on Finance Committee on the 2021-2023 Medium-Term Expenditure FrameWork and Fiscal Strategy Paper,
Babandede disclosed that his outfit generated N14, 772,051billion in 2018, N16,777,643,537billion in 2019. and N5,714,780,005billion in 2020 from passport sales.
From the revenue generated from passports in 2018, N12,181,069,761.69 billion went to Iris Smart Technologies, for 2019, N10,327,818,235.21, went to Iris, while in 2020, N3,508,830,380.61 went to the company.
From ECOWAS/AA, he said the NIS generated 126,136,960million, in 2018, N110,316,892 million in 2019, N38,372,820 million in 2020.
From the revenue generated from ECOWAS/AA, the CG said technical partners, New Works Solution Limited, got N1,376,352,413.59billion, in 2018, N1,573,354,911.58billion, while in 2020, N378,833,730.40 million went to them.
For Address Verification, he said the agency generated N2,075,066,728 in 2018, N2,715,888,307,50billion in 2019,and N561,839,700 million in 2020.
Of the revenue generated from Address Verification, a technical partner National E-government got N302,069,664.39million, in 2018, N276,688,519,22 million in 2019, N82,210,586.84 in 2020.
For the Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens Card, CERPAC, he said the Service, generated N20,358,233,000 billion in 2018, N40,786,437,950 billion in 2019, N16,705,512,250 billion in 2020.
Of the money generated through CERPAC, FMI, collected N236,323,494.00million in 2018, N2,056,632,384.50million in 2019, and N8442,909,515.50.
For E-Pass, the NIS, generated N1,426,566,000.00 in 2018, N1,731,048,700,00 in 2019, and N763,249,300,00 in 2020, while a total of N20.5million, amounting to a total revenue of about N80billion.
From the revenue generated by NIS, through E-Pass, IPTELCOM gulped NN2,442,484,334.50 in 2018, N3,343,331,440,33 billion in 2019 and N1,436,169,951.50billion in 2020, while Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Sub-Treasurer, IPTELCOM took over N4billion from a remainder of the N68billion generated for the years 2018- 2020 from E-Pass and other services.
The payment to foreign and local technical partners namely, Iris Smart Technologies, NewWorks Solution Ltd, National E-government, Greater Washington, Contec(CERPAC-E-Pass), FMI(CERPAC-E-PASS), NIS(After-Payment To IPTELCOM), NSPMC, FIRS,SUB-TREASURER, and IPTELCOM got a dollar payment, totalling $92million dollars, representing over 80 percent of the revenue the NIS generated from 2018-2020.
Faleke who was apparently dissatisfied with the submission summoned all technical partners and agencies involved.
Faleke, while dismissing the Comptroller General, said “CG, thank you. We will use you directly to invite all your partners to appear before this Committee on Thursday”.
He added that “And when they’re coming, they should come with all their tax remittances documents, from personal income tax, withholding tax, Company income tax and Value Added Tax, all from the day they signed the agreement till this day.”
Source: The Guardian
