. Supports draft Whistleblower Bill 2022
The Federal Executive Council (FEC), yesterday approved the Finance Bill 2022, for onward transmission to the National Assembly, for consideration and passage to support the implementation of the 2023 Budget.
The FEC also supported the draft Whistleblower Bill 2022, to ensure alignment with the Evidence Act.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this when she briefed State House correspondents after the FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, at the Aso Villa, in Abuja.
She said the Bill is the outcome of consultations with various stakeholders, saying: “We have been working on this bill and have done a lot of consultations.
“The bill we presented before Council today has five focus areas including tax equity reforms, climate change and green growth provisions, job creation and economic growth reforms, reforming tax incentives, as well as generating revenue-enhancing tax administration.
Bill components
Ahmed also explained that the Bill is anchored on five fundamental policy drivers —Tax Equity, Climate Change, Job Creation/Economic Growth, Tax Incentives Reform, and Revenue Generation/Tax Administration.
In particular, she said under the Tax Equity pillar, all sectors of the economy would be brought into the tax net, including Capital Gains Tax from digital assets, Cable Undertakings, Lottery and Gaming Business.
On the other hand, the Climate Change and Green Growth pillar, promises incentives for the natural gas sector to discourage gas flaring.
She said: “The purpose of the tax equity reforms is to combat tax evasion and aggressive tax planning practices that some companies operating in Nigeria are involved in, but also enabling the utilisation of ICT tools and using international best practice to assess taxpayers tax on a fair reasonable basis.
“The climate change green growth focus will complement non-fiscal reforms that are designed to reduce greenhouse emissions and also to facilitate domestic and international investment in climate adaptation, as well as mitigation and also to enhance green growth and create jobs.
“The third focus area, which is job creation and economic growth, is also designed to complement the ease of doing business and other reforms to support capital formation by the private sector, as well as to foster an enabling business environment for micro, small and medium enterprises for youths, as well as women in businesses. It will also help to enhance the performance of businesses that are in FinTech, ICT, entertainment, Fashion, Sports, as well as the art space.
“The fourth tax incentive is to phase out antiquated pioneer, and other tax incentives for mature industries and moving a revised set of incentives to real infant industries, through economic governance reforms, we’ve also made proposals to reduce tax expenditure which is equivalent to foregone revenue to support the fiscal space and also based on statistics to gradually transition away from expensive and redundant tax incentives to incentives that are rewarding performance.
“The fifth Focus Area, which is revenue generation and tax administration, is to complement the ease of doing business and other reforms that enhance tax administration, as well as introduce targeted non-fiscal reforms to amend, address and cure defects in existing tax and non-tax laws as well as regulations.”
The bill we presented before Council today has five focus areas including tax equity reforms, climate change and green growth provisions, job creation and economic growth reforms, reforming tax incentives, as well as generating revenue-enhancing tax administration.
Whistleblower Bill
Concerning the Whistleblower Bill, the Minister said: “The purpose of operationalizing and putting in place a Whistleblower Bill is to strengthen the fight against corruption, and to also enable protection for whistleblowers that provide information for use by the government.”
She said the move became imperative seeing as the policy which was introduced in 2016, has lost momentum.
She continued: “As you know, since 2016, the Council approved the setting up of the Presidential Initiative of Continuous Audit (PICA).
“PICA has been working in partnership with the EFCC, ICPC, Department of State Services (DSS), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) as well as the office of the Attorney General of the Federation.
“We embarked on engagements in the six geo-political zones and one of the main outcomes that we found is that people are concerned about their safety as a result of providing information. So this bill is critical to ensure the effectiveness of the retention of the whistle policy.”
Group life insurance
The Minister also informed that the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation presented a memo on group life insurance cover for the period 2022 to 2023.
“This is an insurance that covers all government agencies, military and intelligence agencies. Council approved the total sum of N9.24 billion for the insurance cover for 2022 to 2023.
“As you know, the insurance will take effect from the date of payment. And in Nigeria, by our laws, the insurance cover is 30% of the annual the emoluments of any staff of government that is deceased and this cover is paid by the insurance company of the deceased staff.”
