The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has proposed to spend a total of N4.131 billion on refresh­ments and meal subsidies for its staff in the 2021 fiscal year.

This was even as members of the House Committee on Finance expressed dismay at FIRS for proposing to expend a total of N1, 819,556,000 on contract drivers in 2021.

According to budget doc­uments presented before the James Faleke-led Committee on Finance, and seen by Dai­ly Independent, the service is also proposing the sum of N310 million as security vote for the chairman in its 2021 budget estimates.

The figures which are contained on page 17 un­der the proposed Recurrent Overhead for the Year 2021 of the agency’s budget doc­uments shows that while the sum of N340 million is pro­posed for ‘refreshments and meals’, a whopping sum of N3, 791,456,233 was proposed as ‘meal subsidy’.

However, the total spent on refreshments as a line item in 2020, according to the documents, was N337,320,234.

A closer look at the doc­ument also shows that the concept of meal subsidy as proposed by the service in 2021 is a new introduction to its budget proposal as there was no such thing in 2020.

The agency is also propos­ing to spend another N4.2 billion for staff welfare, fes­tivity, and other unspecified items.

READ MORE HERE: https://witnessngr.com/2021-firs-to-spend-n4-131bn-on-refreshments-n1-820bn-on-contract-drivers/