The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the revelation of variances pointing to the siphoning of trillions of naira of taxpayers’ money collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) further confirmed its stance that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Buhari Presidency is neck-deep in corruption and looting of the nation’s common patrimony.
According to PDP, the discovery of variances in the remission of taxes vindicated it concerns about underhand dealings and frittering of monies collected as taxes in the last four years.
The party noted that Nigerians are not deceived by the desperation by agents of the Buhari Presidency to cover its complicity by seeking a fall guy in the Executive Chairman of FIRS, Babatunde Fowler.
Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP National Publicity Secretary in a statement on Monday said, a critical study of the leaked correspondence from the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, to the FIRS Chairman at the wake of the revelations of financial discrepancies at FIRS, totally betrayed the complicity of the cabal in the Buhari Presidency.
“The correspondence also further confirms that our nation and her economy have been in the strangulating grips of a corrupt cabal, who has evidently hijacked the statutory roles and responsibilities of agencies of government, leading to the crippling of our system in the last four years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s misrule.
“The PDP describes as appalling that the Buhari Presidency has allowed its cabal a field day to loot our common patrimony, leading to the crushing economic hardship in the land, which is now worsening, with the anti-people ban on FOREX for food by the Buhari administration”, Ologbondiyan noted.
He further observed that, the stealing of the country’s taxes by APC agents has brought so much anguish to Nigerians, who suffer the brunt of collapsed infrastructure, decay of social amenities and a crippled national economy under President Buhari.
The PDP Spokesperson urged the National Assembly to come to the rescue by holding a public inquest into the handling of taxes collected by the FIRS in the last four years, take urgent steps to recover the stolen funds and channel such to projects that have direct bearing on the welfare of Nigerians.
James Kwen, Abuja
