Nigeria Loses N72bn Revenue Generated by Immigration to Foreign Partners

Udora Orizu in Abuja

The House of Representatives Committee on Finance yesterday alleged that N72 billion of over N80 billion generated from the issuance of international passports and other services by the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) is lost to foreign and other technical partners of the Service.

During the interactive session on the 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) held by the committee, the Comptroller General of NIS, Mohammed Babandede, gave a breakdown of the revenue of the Service to the committee.

He said his agency generated N14, 772,051billion in 2018, N16, 777, 643, 537billion in 2019, and N5, 714, 780, 005 billion in 2020 from international passports.

From the revenue generated from passports in 2018, N12,181,069,761.69 billion went to Iris Smart Technologies; for 2019, N10,327,818,235.21 billion went to Iris, while in 2020, N3,508,830,380.61 billion went to the company.

From Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)/AA, he said the NIS generated 126,136,960million in 2018; N110,316, 892 million in 2019, and N38,372,820 million in 2020.

From the revenue generated from ECOWAS/AA, he said a technical partners, New Works Solution Limited, got N1,376,352,413.59billion in 2018; N1,573,354,911.58billion, while in 2020, N378,833,730.40 million went to them.

On Address Verification, he said the agency generated N2,075,066,728 in 2018; N2,715,888,307,50 billion in 2019, and N561,839,700 million in 2020.

On the revenue generated from Address Verification, a technical partner, National E-government, got N302,069,664.39 million in 2018; N276,688,519,22 million in 2019, and N82,210,586.84 in 2020.

For the Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens Card (CERPAC), he said the Service generated N20,358,233,000 billion in 2018; N40,786,437,950 billion in 2019, and N16,705,512,250 billion in 2020.

On the money generated through CERPAC, FMI collected N236,323, 494.00 million in 2018; N2,056,632,384.50 million in 2019, and N8442,909,515.50 in 2020.

For e-pass, the NIS, generated N1,426,566,000.00 in 2018; N1,731,048,700,00 in 2019, and N763,249,300,00 in 2020.

From the revenue generated by NIS, through e-pass, IPTELCOM gulped NN2,442,484,334.50 billion in 2018; N3,343,331,440,33 billion in 2019, and N1,436,169,951.50 billion in 2020, while Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Sub-Treasurer, and IPTELCOM took over N4billion from a remainder of the N68 billion generated for the years of 2018 to 2020 from e-pass and other services.

The payment to foreign and local technical partners namely: Iris Smart Technologies, NewWorks Solution Limited, National E-government, Greater Washington, Contec (CERPAC-E-Pass), FMI(CERPAC-E-PASS), NIS(After-Payment To IPTELCOM), NSPMC, FIRS, SUB-TREASURER, and IPTELCOM got payment totaling $92million representing over 80 percent of the revenue the NIS generated from 2018 to 2020.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the committee, Hon. James Faleke, resolved to summon all technical partners and agencies involved.

According to Faleke, “We thank the comptroller-general. We will use you directly to invite all your partners to appear before this committee on Thursday. And when they’re coming, they should come with all their tax remittances documents from personal income tax, withholding tax, company income tax and Value Added Tax, all from the day they signed the agreement till this day.”