Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS has continued to sustain its high growth path that began a decade ago through IT deployment and automation. Aliyu Bello talks to Kola Okunola, the Director and Head of ICT.
Briefly describe the activities of your department in relation to service delivery?
The ICT Department provides all the IT-based solutions and support to the Service. This includes provision of local and wide area network services, management of ICT infrastructure, provision of ICT support services and development of ICT strategy aligned with corporate goals and objectives. All these are delivered under the vision of providing quality service to taxpayers and making taxation a pivot of national development.
Do you view the information services in the FIRS to be a success in the financial industry?
Yes.
From your perspective, what would you say are the main factors associated with your success?
Strong management support for ICT initiatives targeted at FIRS objectives, dedicated and committed staff, adoption of best of breed technologies are a few of the factors that have contributed to our success so far. We have been able to commence automation of processes, automation of tax collection processes, integration with electronic platforms and banks, compliance with e-payment requirements and development of a robust ICT Enterprise architecture based on service orientation.
What are the most important things that you bring to the tax and financial industry?
We are able to deploy ICT to bring greater efficiency and transparency into the tax administration system. We are also able to provide a better quality of service to taxpayers.
What key developments has the FIRS seen in the past year and what are some of the key IT applications you see going forward?
We have adopted a service oriented model, deployed enterprise level applications and infrastructure. We have also commenced the deployment of ERP, Messaging and Collaboration, Document Management applications as well as deployment of a national fibrte-optic network to support or existing VSAT based WAN.
Can you tell us a bit about the strength and values that the deployment of VSAT system contributed to your organisations?
VSAT deployment enabled connection between the Head Office and tax offices nationwide. This has enabled a real time communication and information sharing. It has enabled us to quickly deploy WAN connectivity to remote locations where our offices are located.
At the FIRS, functional application of Information Technology has helped to promoted efficiency, accountability and plug institutional leakages; can this process assist in improving tax penetration across Nigeria?
Yes. There is better access to data about payment profiles and those outside the tax pool. The tax payer is also more willing to pay because he knows his tax is accounted for. Technology allows for data mining to identify taxpayer patterns allowing FIRS deploy its resources optimally to enhance revenue generation for the country.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service has introduced automation collection process called Project FACT – an acronym for Friendly, Accurate, Complete and Timely, designed to improve the FIRS collection system. Could you please comment on this enterprise application?
This enterprise application provides us with a tax administration database. The system is integrated with our payment platform PayDirect and our collecting banks. The system has greatly improved our ability to track and account for taxes paid and provides us with a central repository of taxpayer data. We are in the process of further enhancing our tax administration system with the deployment of the new Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS). At the end of the process we expect to have an even more robust tax administration system and vastly improved capabilities to provide better service to taxpayers.
Interswitch, an ICT firm that provides the backbone for the bulk of e-payment transaction in Nigeria, worked with the FIRS to introduce Interswitch-based collection system from the 12 collecting banks to the Lead banks and from thence to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for daily tax collection. Do you foresee the transfer of operations and service delivery to your in-house team in the foreseeable future?
We are exploring all options open to the Service in order to ensure that revenue generation is optimised and the tax administration system is as transparent and efficient as possible. Our core business and focus remains tax administration but we will continue to increase internal ICT staff capacity to support and maintain these critical systems in partnership with all stakeholders.
What about the conditions at the zonal offices of the FIRS. Could you briefly comment on the pace of their computerisation, in preparation for an automated and fully Integrated Tax Administration System, as touted by your management?
We are doing all required to ensure that the ITAS system is successful. From a people, technology and process perspective we are designing and implementing the requirements detailed by our ITAS team. This includes all zonal offices and tax offices.
What are the current challenges in the tax collections systems and how are you positioned to meet them?
Our challenges are being addressed. These may be environmental such as power stability or human such as adequate capacity to drive adoption of technologies we deploy. With strong support from FIRS management we are addressing all our challenges.
What would be your biggest challenges in the year ahead? And what are your strategies for dealing with them?
Our biggest challenge would be overcoming all factors that would hinder our attainment of government revenue targets for the Service. We are using good planning, internal communication and teamwork as our strategies.
FIRS Networks, is the infrastructure arm of Federal Inland Revenue Service, but its business idea is basically to bring end-to-end solutions for its customers. To be able to offer a full service, FIRS has sometimes allied service providers into FIRS’ own solution. Could you please comment on the value of revenue loss which this partnership has helped to contain?
Deployment of technology and tight integration with the banks has helped to curtail revenue loss. The consistent increase in FIRS revenue over the past few years has shown the potential revenue that can be generated from taxes in the country. Our role is to ensure that the ICT infrastructure to enable that is there and we can provide simple and convenient service to taxpayers.
With the increased automation introduced by the FIRS has come the potential to interface with other government agencies and private stakeholders in ways conducive to eventual creation of a fully integrated e-tax platform. Has the FIRS integrate its system with that of the Customs Service, for instance, to enable the two organisations share information electronically?
Yes we are integrating with several other stakeholders in the tax system. We are adopting a service oriented architecture that will allow secured access to FIRS services by authorised organisations.
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