The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has assured Nigerians that the federal government has no plan to block bank accounts of individuals without tax identification number from January 2020.
The Minister who made this clarification at the briefings on the breakdown of the just enacted Appropriation Act 2020 in Abuja, stated that the new Finance Bill is yet to be signed by the President and that the President will consult widely with all stakeholders before signing the bill into law.
She also assured that even if the bill is signed, not all the provisions of the law will come into force immediately.
“We are confident that this week, Mr. President will receive the Finance Bill from the National Assembly and he will normally ask various ministries should review and advice him before he finally assents to it. Our target is that we start the work from January 2020. I am not saying that every provision in the Finance Bill will take effect from January 2020 because I have seen it newspapers that people are saying that from January 2020 without TIN you will not be able to operate your bank accounts.
“It doesn’t work like that. We will still have to engage the commercial banks, the FIRS will have to engage the commercial banks and work out a modality on how this provision will be implemented and normally, there will be information that will be given to the citizens on how they can get their TIN which, by the way, is a simple visit to the FIRS website where you register and you get your TIN and there will be some time given for that process to be activated before any imposition or the stoppage of the use of bank accounts is taken, ” she said.