Over 5,000 Debtors Owe 10 FG Agencies N4.67tn – Finance Minister

 

The Federal Government has revealed it is being owed N4.67 trillion by over 5,000 debtors.

 

The Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who made the disclosure on Monday, said the government had in the past 18 months recovered N53.8bn out of the N5.2tn owed 10 ministries, departments and agencies.

 

The minister made the disclosure during the launch of the Project Lighthouse Debt Analytics and Reporting platform in Abuja.

 

She credited the project lighthouse and the collaborative efforts of the Office of the Account General for the discovery and recovery of the outstanding debts

 

Ahmed noted that in a bid to optimise revenue, the ministry had in 2017 introduced the ‘Project Lighthouse’ to mine data from multiple sources to support the implementation of the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme.

 

According to her, the project seeks to, among other things, address issues surrounding the tracking and implementation of government policies, initiatives, programmes and mandates.

 

She said, “A perfunctory review of perceived significant leakages in government led the FMFBNP to issue a directive on September 26, 2019, to all government agencies in a bid to aggregate all government debts across all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, with a view to having a single window on the credit profile of the government.