The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, says it has uncovered N5.15 trillion debt that had not been recovered from third parties.
She made this known on Friday while speaking at the Executive Intelligence Management Course 14 of the National Institute for Security Studies held in Abuja.
She added that through its LightHouse Project of the ministry, the government was able to recover N49.7 billion out of the N5.2 trillion debt owed to it by the third parties.
Ahmed said the Project Lighthouse was one of the many initiatives the government, through her ministry, had implemented to ensure good governance and security in the country.
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Lighthouse Project was designed to provide the intelligence and profiling engine for more efficient and intelligent data-driven tax assessments, thus ensuring major tax loopholes are plugged and revenues dramatically increased.
Ahmed said, “The security agencies are prioritised in the allocation of our limited revenues and as an example, about 86 per cent of the 2021 Supplementary Budget was dedicated to the capital and recurrent expenditure needs of the security agencies to supplement the allocations in the 2021 Amended Budget.
“Several initiatives to promote good governance are also funded through the Federal Budget supplemented with the assistance of development partners.”
“The second phase of implementation of Project Lighthouse has been approved by the Federal Executive Council and so far, we have been able to aggregate N5.2 trillion worth of debts owed to the government by third parties, of which N49.7bn of this amount has been recovered,” the minister added.
She said her ministry would continue to work closely with relevant stakeholders “to make Nigeria a safe and secure environment conducive to sustainable development”.
