PDP fingers Buhari presidency, APC in FIRS alleged poor revenue collection

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Monday blamed the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari over the poor revenue allegedly collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS.


It also alleged that the siphoning of trillions of naira of taxpayers’ money being collected by the revenue collection agency further confirmed its stance against the Buhari-led government on alleged corruption and looting of the country’s common patrimony.


The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan said this in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja.


In his words, “This discovery of variances in the remission of taxes vindicates our concerns about underhand dealings and frittering of monies collected as taxes in the last four years.


“The party notes that Nigerians are not deceived by the desperation by agents of the Buhari Presidency to cover its complicity by seeking a fall guy in the Executive Chairman of FIRS, Babatunde Fowler.


“The PDP says that a critical study of the leaked correspondence from the Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari, to the FIRS Chairman at the wake of the revelations of financial discrepancies at FIRS, totally betrays the complicity of the cabal in the Buhari Presidency.


“The correspondence also further confirms that our nation and her economy have been in the strangulating grips of a corrupt cabal, who has evidently hijacked the statutory roles and responsibilities of agencies of government, leading to the crippling of our system in the last four years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s misrule”.


The main opposition party stressed that it was appalling that the Buhari presidency has allowed so-called cabal a field day to loot the nation’s commonwealth.


It further said the alleged looting by the APC even led into the crushing economic hardship in the land that culminated into the alleged anti-people ban on forex for food imports by the Buhari administration.


Ologbondiyan added, “The stealing of our taxes by APC agents has brought so much anguish to Nigerians, who suffer the brunt of collapsed infrastructure, decay of social amenities and a crippled national economy under President Buhari”.


PDP, therefore, urged the National Assembly to come to the rescue of the country by holding a public inquest into the handling of taxes collected by the FIRS in the last four years and, recover the alleged stolen funds for projects that have direct bearing on the welfare of Nigerians.