The Federal Government has indicated its readiness to probe the N23 trillion owed in “Ways and Means,” a debt that has been outstanding for some time.
Mr. Edun made this known during the Public Wealth Management Conference held in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said the audit of the N23 trillion debt will help in “reducing future government borrowing.”
To this effect, Edun stated that the Nigerian government plans to introduce a bill to the National Assembly shortly.
“This bill will seek approval to eliminate all unnecessary taxes and levies from the country’s tax system.
“We have to stem liquidity. The Central Bank has led the way in pointing out that the ways and means have to be tailed down and eliminated, and that is what we agree with.
“We are going in that direction; there was an inherited amount of N22.7 trillion in backlogs. We are auditing it, and it is like when I am ready to pay a loan from a bank and I ask for an audit before finding the agreed sum to pay.
“But apart from that, how do you get your ways and means down? We have to get revenues up and expenditures reduced as much as possible.”
The minister acknowledged that the current administration, under President Bola Tinubu, inherited the issue of rising food and commodity prices from the previous administration with regard to the high cost of living and feeding in Nigeria.
“Efforts are being made to reduce the cost of food items and address the high inflation rate in the nation,” Persecondnews quotes Edun as saying.
He stressed that measures are in place to alleviate the suffering of citizens.
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