Speaking in a  virtual meeting with states’ Attorney-Generals, the Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue (FIR) and members of the Joint Task Board, the AGF said the stamp duty recovery will help generate more revenue for the country.

A statement released by Malami’s media aide, Umar Gwandu read “It may be recalled that Federal Government has set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Audit and Recovery of backlogs of stamp duties. The committee, chaired by the Office Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice; Abubakar Malami, SAN was inaugurated by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha on June 30, 2020. Membership of the committee was drawn from the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, Central Bank of Nigeria and Federal Inland Revenue Serve. The Stamp Duties was originally captured in the Stamp Duties Act 1939 (Ordinance 41 of 1939) and amended by numerous Acts and various resolutions and contained in the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. Recently, the Finance Act 2019 amendment to the Stamp Duties Act, particularly Section 52-56 clearly defined the responsibilities for the administration of Stamp Duties in Nigeria and jurisdiction of participating taxing authorizes, as well as explained that the Federal Inland Revenue is the competent tax authority to administer, assess, collect, and account for stamp duty in the country.”

Timi Frank, a former deputy spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC), made the allegation recently, claiming that Osinbajo started having issues when the presidency discovered that he mismanaged N90 billion allegedly made available by the FIRS for 2019 election campaign purposes.

Reacting to the allegation, FIRS in a statement released by Wahab Gbadamosi, its director of information, dismissed the claim, saying the service’s annual allocation is not even up to the said amount.

The statement in part reads “The entire allegation being spread by one Frank Timi that the Federal lnland Revenue Service spent N90 billion to fund the last election is mendacious, wicked, malicious and a calculated attempt to smear the image of the Service and that of his Excellency, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. In the last four years since Mr Tunde Fowler has supervised operations at the FIRS, the agency had not received up to N90 billion, per annum, as Cost of Collection from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC. Mr. Frank and his band of liars might wish to cross-check this from FAAC, a public institution, whose records are open to the public. It is from the remittances from FAAC—which had never grossed up to N100 billion, PER ANNUM, that FIRS pays the salary and emoluments and trains it’s over 8,000 staff, runs over 150 offices and provides for other needs of the Service. Given the above, IT IS NOT PLAUSIBLE nor DOES IT MAKE ANY SENSE that FIRS will commit its resources to a phantom campaign of N90 billion as suggested by Mr Timi Frank and FIRS does not fund political associations. The agency is subject to the eagle eye scrutiny, supervision and close monitoring by the National Assembly, the Federation Account Allocation Committee and the Ministry of Finance through the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, OAGF”.