By George Ozalla
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has successfully organized a two-day 2025 conference on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) at the prestigious Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja. The conference which ended Wednesday, brought together experts, various stakeholders, heads of other government agencies, and state chairmen of boards of internal revenues to discuss the negative impact of IFFs on Nigeria’s economy and explore strategies to combat this menace. The theme of the conference was “Combating Illicit Financial Flows: Strengthening Nigeria’s Domestic Resource Mobilisation“, a clear call on all stakeholders for collective action in addressing the challenges posed by IFFs and to develop effective solutions to prevent revenue loss and promote economic growth.
NEWSCOUNT Media crew got an opportunity during the conference for an exclusive interview with one of the key participants at the conference in the person of Brigadier General Jeremiah A. Faransa, Retired, but obviously energetic, enthusiastic, and not tired, who is the Executive Chairman of Taraba State Internal Revenue Service (TIRS), rejigging internally generated revenue of the state to an impressive height!
Taraba State is one of the 36 states in Nigeria, known for its rich agricultural land and natural resources. Brig Gen. Jeremiah A. Faransa Rtd. is the current Executive Chairman of the Taraba Internal Revenue Service (TIRS). With a rich military background, he brings a unique perspective to tax administration, focusing on reform and technology-driven solutions to boost revenue generation in the state.
Interview Session
“Reforming Tax Administration: An Exclusive Interview with Brig Gen. Faransa Rtd.; Chairman Taraba Internal Revenue Service (TIRS)
Excerpts:
Newscount: What is your take-home message from the just-concluded 2025 Conference on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) organized by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)?
Brig Gen. Faransa Rtd.: One, Nigeria as a country lost a lot of revenues both illicit financial flows and otherwise, these funds either illegally diverted or where taxes are supposed to be paid on these funds, they are diverted and at the end of the day, the country is at the receiving end, so we lost billions of naira through all these kinds of illegality. But with the tax reforms now in place, we are here to tap from the knowledge of experts who came here to explain to us that there is a need, one for data sharing between agencies of government so that those funds can be tracked and if it is successfully tracked, we can easily get a lot of revenues from those funds that are illegally taken out of this country. There are so many ways funds are taken out, some through tax evasion and due to the porosity of our borders, most of these funds are taken out of this country. But the present tax reforms by this government, you know that to do that, it must be technologically driven and so in this case, we need a lot of technology. Another thing is that there must be capacity development. Because without capacity development, we cannot achieve our aim on this, then there has to be a lot of legal framework so that everything done will be legally accepted by the country- by the organizations so that we too can stand the test of time and also gain from revenue that is normally not gotten from such kind of illegal practice.
Newscount: Chairman sir, going down now specifically to Taraba state, we know that it is mostly those in the formal sector that are easily captured paying their taxes. What are you doing to ensure that those who are in the informal sector are also captured into the tax payment net?
Brig Gen. Faransa Rtd.: To be honest, when I came in last year June, I met a rotten system where things are not working- things were done through analogue means, so we have to start afresh and what we did was to start, because I came, there was no database, we have to start somewhere and started developing the database and I also found out that the knowledge of most of the staff is limited because they are not computer literate, they have not been going for seminars and undertaking relevant courses. We keyed into that aspect of manpower development. Another thing I also found out was that Taraba state was not operating a single treasury account since the creation of the state, but my coming in last year, I introduced the single treasury account where all taxes and remittances due to the government are domiciled with Fidelity Bank.
I want to say that when I came in, Taraba was earning less than 700 million naira Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) per month, but I came in June last year, I raised the revenue to 1.1 billion naira and from there, there was a kind of geometric increment in revenue generation in Taraba state, from that 1.1 billion naira to 1.5 billion naira and so on, as I am talking to you now Taraba state is generating not less than 2.6 billion naira monthly.
So I introduced a lot of in-house trainings and the issue of analogue system, we have jettisoned that, last year we were able to send about 65 of our staff to workshops and different training programs within the country, this year we are able to go to Ghana for West African Institute of Tax Countries of West African Chairmen, we converged in Ghana- that is the kind of exposure we are trying to seek to bring to Taraba state internal revenue service to achieve more greater height and also key into what others are doing. And His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Taraba State, Agbu Kefas has been very wonderful and supportive and you can see us here attending this conference – all these was due to his efforts and I have strong faith that Taraba state will grow bigger and greater. Thank you.”
End.
