The President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan nominated Ms M’fon Akpan as the new Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). Ms Akpan’s name was forwarded to the Senate for confirmation by President Jonathan on Wednesday, 20 November 2013. This was in pursuant to the provisions of Section 11a of the Federal Inland Revenue (Establishment) Act 2007.
The process of appoining a substantive Chairman for FIRS is coming more than one-and-half years after the expiration of terms and relinquishment of office by the former occupant, Mrs Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru. Mrs Omoigui-Okauru left FIRS in April 2012 after serving two terms of four years each in office. In the last one year, the leadership of FIRS has been under the leadership of Alhaji Kabir Mashi, who has been the Acting Executive Chairman of FIRS following the departure of the former Chairman.
M’fon Akpan is a 1990 graduate of Accountancy from University of Nigeria, Nzukka and Chartered Accountant with professional practice experience having started her career at Arthur Anderson where she spent about 11 year. She holds a Masters’ Degree in Management from London Business School.
She is reputed to possess experience in financial services industry specialising in risk management, risk-based assurance and governance, financial and business advisory. She has functioned at strategic management position up to Board of Directors level, shaping and informing organisation policy, influencing risk controls culture and standards, implementing enterprise-wide risk management systems and governance frameworks and embedding sustainable business practices.
M’fon Akpan is currently Standard Bank’s Chief Risk Office for West Africa. She assumed this position in May 2013.
Prior to joining the Standard Bank Group, she worked with ME&A Professional Services in the UK from May 2008 to April 2013. ME&A is a multi-disciplinary professional services firm providing enterprise-wide risk management; assurance, governance and business advisory; project and supplier management; business process re-engineering; and transaction support – financial & commercial due diligence, buy/sell-side advisory.
In her role at ME&A, she served many global financial institutions including HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Anglo Irish Bank. At HSBC, she held an interim management role as the Head of Operational Risk Framework. Her role at RBS and Anglo Irish Bank focused on due diligence consultancy on behalf of the APA and NAMA.
M’fon also worked at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2008 as Head of Audit, a Director position with responsibility for people, strategy and brand.
With her wealth of experience, it is expected M’fon has the experience to take FIRS to another level and surpass the sterling performance of Mrs Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru. Mrs Omoigui-Okauru had an impressive career in FIRS, having helped to institute critical reforms in the tax collection system as well as growing tax revenue base from less than N1.2 trillion when she came to office in 2004 to over N4.6 trillion in 2011. FIRS reported an income of about N5.7 trillion in 2012 and targets N6 trillion for 2013. Will FIRS report 11-digit revenue under the new Chairman?
The country is waiting to see if the nomination of M’fon Akpan will be confirmed by the National Assembly and whether she will be able (if confirmed) to take FIRS to another level.
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