SEC pledges cooperation on Project Light House

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has pledged to cooperate with the Ministry of Finance on Project Light House recently inaugurated by the minister to assist the Committee achieve set objectives.

Project Light House is designed to dwell on data mining and analytics techniques to identify tax defaulters, establish their tax liabilities and send notifications to appropriate authorities for necessary action.

Mary Uduk, acting directorgeneral of SEC, who noted the Commission support for the project, also commended the minister on the initiative.

Uduk emphasised the need for collaboration among relevant agencies to assist the government in its revenue generation, adding that Project Light House was a positive step in that direction.

“It is clear that data and information will certainly aid the generation of more revenue, and in the long run all agencies will be better for it as there will be more resources for government to carry out development

“Data gathering and sharing is the way to go especially in this digital age, as when there is available data, information can

be shared and that will increase compliance level as well as improve revenue generation,” she said.

The acting DG said low revenue generation was a source of worry, as when government does not meet its revenue generation targets, it would be difficult to provide critical infrastructure that would encourage investment in the country.

She therefore pledged the full cooperation of the SEC to ensure that relevant data were made available when needed by the committee.

In her address, Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, said one of the key economic policy objectives of the current administration, as contained in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), was improving overall Federal Government revenues by targeting and increasing revenues from non-oil revenue sources.

It also aims, among other goals, to increase the tax base by drastically increasing the Company Income Tax and Value Added Tax compliance, bringing additional tax payers into the tax net, and increase Tax to GDP ratio from the current 6 percent to 15 percent by the year 2020, Ahmed said.