• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Stamp Duties: RMAFC Staff kicks against use of Consultants

stamp-duties (1)

Workers of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, on Monday kicked against the use of Consultants to carry out activities that can be done by workers in the organization.

The workers who noted that the organization was about to engage a set of Consultants to probe 22 Commercial Banks on recovery of Stamp Duties, said the action was leading to redundancy and loss of revenue which would have accrued to the Commission.

The workers, lamented that the policy had led to brain drain and under utilization of staff while the commission is engaging over 100 consultants to the neglects of its staff.

Addressing journalists in Abuja on Monday, the branch Chairman of the Nigeria Civil Service Union, Amanabo Josiah, said their action was necessitated by recent move by the management of the organization to engage Consultants to probe banks over collection of Stamp Duties.

The National Economic Council, NEC, had at its recent meeting, empowered the Commission to probe 22 Commercial banks over alleged failures to remit funds collected to the federal government.

“ It will interest you to know that NEC requested the Commission and not Consultants to probe the banks , but surprisingly, firms are having a field day in the premises of the Commission with their proposals”

They noted that the Commission had embarked on a similar action in 2016 when NEC to verify and reconcile revenue collections and remittances by the Federal Inland Revenue Services FIRS and the NigeriaCustoms Service NCS.

According to the Civil Servants, “ the Commission speedily engaged the services of over 100 Consultants with a mandate of completing the engagements within six months with effect from 1st November”.

The workers accused the organization of a bridge of BPP laws as there was no compliance with the extant laws requiring the engagements of such consultants.

They therefore warned banks not to attend to any of such consultants for the purposes of carrying out the new assignment.

“They should be put on alert not to entertain such consultants as their activities are illegal,” adding that “The intention is born out of greed”

Funding have become the bane in the house because of engagements of consultants.

“Today, there is no advertisement, so how did the Consultants know about this assignment. Despite this , there is an influx of companies seeking to carry out this job.”

“We are now clamoring that this job, we can prosecute it, we can do the job.

The workers accused the Ministry of Justice of conniving with the top management of the in engaging the consultants with the active support of the Presidency, while the workers are idle,

“No staff of this Commission was engaged in carrying out this assignment despite the requisite qualifications possessed by our staff”

“We want to inform all the Commercial Banks that the process is still ongoing and they should be put on alert not to entertain any Consultant or group on behalf of the Commission, as their activities at the moment are illegal”