….. As 17 Banks Sign Onto its eCollection Revenue Platform
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s electronic collection (eCollection) revenue platform has confirmed that 17 Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) have signed onto its platform aimed at checking theft, diversion of collected revenue and all sorts of corrupt practices associated with revenue collection.
According to the CBN, the platform will come into effect on March 1, 2015.
The director, Banking and Payment System Department, CBN, Dipo Fatokun, disclosed this yesterday at the sensitisation workshop for banks organised by the apex bank, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and the developer of the Remita platform for eCollection, Systemspecs Limited, held in Lagos, yesterday.
He said the eCollection is a solution for the electronic collection of government fees, taxes and custom duties which allows government agencies to exploit the full capabilities of the technology to transform its services to the public.
“The eCollection will avert a larger proportion of revenue theft, diversion of collected revenue and all sorts of corrupt practices associated with revenue collection,” Fatokun said.
He said the digitisation of the collection process serves as a means to achieve a cashless environment.
“The whole world is moving into a cashless mode and Nigeria cannot be an exemption. We must not be deterred by these routine challenges of infrastructural deficiencies or fraud (especially electronic/card fraud) because ultimately the potential benefits of going cashless outweigh the challenges,” he added.
Fatokun stated that the policy involves a culture change, which will naturally take some time to gain acceptance, however, he said with support of all the stakeholders, cashless policy is being accomplished. He noted that eCollection supports government’s cashless policy introduced by the CBN in 2012 aimed at encouraging more electronic-based transactions (payments for goods, services, transfers, etc.).
According to him, eCollection will drive development and modernization of the payment system in line with Nigeria’s vision 2020 goal of being amongst the top 20 economies by the year 2020.
In his own submission, Alhaji Mohammed Dikwa, director, funds department, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) represented by Alhanji Kure said e-Collection is the flip side of e-payment. Noting that outflows from the TSA are currently made through e-payment, while inflows are largely manual, he said e-Collection completes the cycle of processing government transactions electronically.
Issues with current collection arrangement include poor tracking of IGR and other collection, leakages of government revenue and other inflows, non-remittance of revenue by collecting entities, misappropriation of revenue and other collections, inadequate, or sometimes and out-right lack of records.
He said eCollection will plug loopholes in FG’s revenue collection system, enthrone a new regime of transparent and accountable IGR management, improve available funds for funding developmental programs, align with the on-going CBN e-payment policy, ease the burden of revenue payers, make government contracts more accessible to the people and create a mutually rewarding relationship with collecting banks.
He disclosed that the 2014 IGR projection was N452bn but the actual collected as at Oct 2014 was N148bn. Current eCollection channels include any branch of any bank, Internet banking, Remita collection platform.