By RANOBA BAOA
One of the major benefits of the Fiji National Provident Fund and Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority joint card system is that it will enable to recognise identities of fraudsters and remove them eventually.
This was highlighted by both the superannuation fund and tax bosses during the launch of the official roll out of the joint identity card for the Suva area at FRCA headquarters yesterday.
Fiji Revenue and Customs chief executive, Jitoko Tikolevu noted that any abuse of any kind has to be prevented.
“We’ve already identified two cases in the west whereby a TIN (Tax Identification Number) has been manipulated,” Mr Tikolevu said.
“So someone has got two or three TINs for example to try and claim refunds, but we found out very lately, in fact, late last year.
Manipulating the system
Mr Tikolevu said that tax payers manipulate the system by forging signatures and in turn not paying taxes.
“So people can just forge signatures just like that. With the TIN and FNPF together with the card, we can probably avoid that. Fraud, it is real and people are manipulating the system to their advantage.”
Fiji National Provident Fund chief executive, Aisake Taito said that this was also evident for the fund.
“We had some cases where FNPF numbers which had been used by people who are not the owner of the card,” Mr Taito said.
“So in that case we had only one source of information which is FNPF but now that we have another source of information, which we can verify whether the person is the actual owner of the card or not.”
Confidentiality secured
In light of this, Mr Tikolevu highlighted: “I must stress the fact that confidential information amongst members for both superannuation and tax will always be protected fundamentally.”
Chief Guest, Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said the idea of the introducing the card was an added value to removing ‘bureaucracy’.
“Most modern day countries have a national ID card and it removes the bureaucracy at the moment,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.
“There has been a lot of identity theft in Fiji, whether it’s at an electoral polling level or whether it’s at the tax level or whether it’s at FNPF level, therefore, we need to remove those anomalies.”
Do not lose cards
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum also encouraged people members to take care of the cards as this was an issue with voter registration card with some 1500 seeking replacements.
Replacement cards will be at a cost of $10.
The card will be rolled out in phases and by locations as the process will affect over 700,000 taxpayers and will also be issued first to 250,000 FNPF members, who also have a TIN.
From left: Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority chief executive officer, Jitoko Tikolevu, Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Fiji National Provident Fund chief executive officer, Aisake Taito (back to camera) during the roll out of the joint cards for the Suva area yesterday. Photo: KAITLYN CHAMBERLIN