Presidency finally reveals why former FIRS Chairman Babatunde Fowler’s tenure was not renewed

The Presidency has finally revealed why the tenure of former Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr Babatunde Fowler, was not renewed.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media, Garba Shehu disclosed that Fowler tenure as FIRS Chairman was not renewed over his inability to generate enough revenue for the country.

In a brief session with journalists in Abuja over the weekend, the Presidential spokesperson also revealed that the Buhari-led administration is optimistic that the revenue will improve following Babatunde Fowler’s removal.

Garba Shehu said;

“It is not a scandal to borrow, the bad thing about borrowing is when you deployed it to your pocket. This has happened in the past in this country, President Buhari is borrowing to do railway, to do East-West expressway, to do second Niger bridge, to do Mabilla power, to do Abuja-Kano expressway, to do Ajaokuta-Abuja gas pipeline.

“These are projects that are beneficial to the economy, these are basic infrastructure projects – railway, power – without which this country cannot achieve development.

“So, if you ask me, from my own understanding, the problem we have in this country is the revenue issue. We have a revenue problem because we are unable to generate as much money as it is needed to do more capital infrastructure and also service debt.

“Because of the low revenue earnings, people look at the size of our debt repayment and they scream. But government is doing something about this and I’m happy you have seen the change that has happened in FIRS, give them a chance, let see how they would perform. Government is optimistic that things will look upward and the revenue will improve. And once there is inflow that is sufficient to do a lot of these things, we may not even need to borrow.”

Recall that Babatunde Fowler whose tenure as FIRS Chairman expired on December 9, 2019, has already been replaced by Muhammad Nami.