EFCC To Collaborate With KADIRS in Blocking Tax Leakages

Matilda Omonaiye/

In a bid to block leakages in taxation and ensure prompt payment of tax in Kaduna State, the Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa today promised to collaborate and partner with the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Services (KADIRS) in the areas of information gathering and sharing.

The EFCC boss gave the assurance when a delegation from KADIRS led by its Executive Chairman, Dr. Zaid Abubakar paid him a courtesy visit at the Commission’s headquarters, Jabi, Abuja.

The EFCC boss stressed the need for partnership and collaboration which he said was one of the core mandates of the Commission and would work with KADIRS to achieve its objectives.

He said, “Here in the EFCC, issues of partnership are one of our core values. We are by law empowered to collaborate with agencies within and outside the country for the main purpose of seeing that economic and financial crimes are curtailed in this country. I want to assure you that we are willing to partner with your organization to ensure that those that are expected to pay their taxes are paying their taxes as and when due; and for the collaboration that you said that you have been having with the EFCC, I want to assure you that we are going to sustain it.”

In his remarks, Executive Chairman of KADIRS, Dr. Zaid Abubakar said they were at the EFCC to seek ways of collaboration in the areas of information and data gathering and in other areas the EFCC could assist.

He said, “We are also faced with the use of data gathering which, as earlier, it was EFCC we relied upon to get whatever data we are able to use. We saw the need for us to push further instead of just limiting ourselves to the zonal office. We saw the need for us to escalate issues and come specially to meet the Executive Chairman, first to show our appreciation over what happened in the last 12 months, the successes we recorded because of the partnership, and also to ask further on other areas that he feels he can assist going by the provision of the law because we are not going to ask for anything outside the mandate of EFCC.”

Bawa enjoined the KADIRS to take advantage of the Tax Fraud Section in the Kaduna Zonal Command to improve its activities and bring more taxpayers into the tax net.