FCTA To Collect All Revenues For Area Councils

By: Wisdom Acka

Authorities of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) have said that they would commence collection of all revenues due to the six Area Councils on their behalf.

This is as an agreement has been reached between the FCT Administration and the Councils for the FCTA to begin the collection next year.

Acting Chairman, FCT Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS), Michael Ango, said this during end of year media briefing in his office in Area 3, Garki I District, Abuja.

Emphasizing that the global best practice was for taxes to be collected centrally, Ango assured that the revenues so collected would then be disbursed to the Councils accordingly.

He said: “We have different Agencies in the FCT that collect revenue on behalf of the FCT Administration, and these Agencies, sometimes or as the practice is right now, collect all these revenue items individually.

His words:”As we know, even globally, this is not the best practice and so the Minister, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, has directed that all the Agencies in the FCT must have one central point for revenue collection. However, this revenue will remain theirs. All we are doing is to assist them to collect and aggregate it. Thereafter the monies will be disbursed to them in their various accounts”

He, however, noted that the Service and the six Area Councils are presently working on, first of all, streamlining and harmonizing revenue items for ease of payment and elimination of multiple taxation.