THE INFORMAL SECTOR DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM INVESTOR’S PITCH

The Informal Sector Database Management System (IS-DBMS) is a data collection and sharing software
system conceived and designed by The Jury Justice and Rectitude Advocacy Initiative, to implement the
informal sector micro-tax for value added services (mTfVAS) policy. It is a developed to be a data-
warehouse for sub-national governments. The mTfVAS has now been adopted by the Nigerian Governors’
Forum as its proposed tax reform policy, because 93% of their 12,000 respondents agreed to participate in
the policy, while the Federal Inland Revenue Service is also seeking ways to implement it as proposed.
As a utility software for sub-national governments, deployed as a web-based and mobile application (to be
available on configured multi-modal biometric data capture devices), IS-DBMS allows data sharing among
State Tax Agencies, government and private HMOs, Micro-Pension Fund Administrators (mPFA), and
State Residents Management Authority amongst others, on Informal Workers (IWs) registered and
onboarded unto the platform, linked to their respective servers.
Informal workers registering unto the IS-DBMS shall remit as low as N300 – N1800 daily, to fund pro-
rata, their health insurance, micro-pension, and Personal Income Tax (PIT) at 26%, 40% and 21.5%
respectively. While the PIT and Health Insurance Premium (HIP) are fixed sums, depending on the sector
(agriculture, artisans, trade and commerce, and transport) and level (micro, small, medium), the health
policy selected and dependents onboarded, respectively; the micro-pension is not. No further pro-rata
deductions from subsequent daily payments shall be made once the monthly fixed amount due to their PIT
and HIP are reached. The PIT and HIP deductions shall rather be diverted to their Tax Refund Account
(TRA).
The unique value proposition of the mTfVAS is the TRA, which is a smoothening account for the IWs,
first to receive 60% of the pro-rata diverted deductions for PIT and/or HIP, after their respective caps are
reached. As a smoothening account, it’s also purposed to balance and bridge the PIT and HIP caps/amount
due, if and when in any month, informal workers (IWs) pro-rata remittances are insufficient. The TRA
balance shall be accessed for liquidation, less 5%, in a two-week window at the end of every year.
The Machine Learning built IS-DBMS allows IWs to update basic personal information like D.O.B,
dependent, beneficiaries, marital status, education qualification, contact information, after uploading
relevant documents as proof. They shall access their profile on the web-platform with their username and
password, to also monitor their account.
Upon registering onto the IS-DBMS, IWs shall immediately be issued with a unique Informal Sector
Identification Number (ISIN); and subsequently issued with Tax Identification Number (TIN) and Tax
Refund Account Number (TRAN) by the Tax Agency; Health Insurance Policy Number (HIPN) by HMOs;
Retirement Savings Account Number (RSAN) by the PFAs; National Identification Number (NIN) and
State Residents’ Identification Number (SRIN) by the State Residents’ Management Authority where
applicable, using the data collected by IS-DBMS enumerators. Data collected shall include biometrics (face
and finger) and other data required by the data sharing Organizations.
Nigeria urgently needs capital and revenue mobilization to provide these social services to its working
population and their dependents. With about 55 million being IWs, the mTfVAS anchored on the IS-
DBMS, is a silver bullet; but we need investors and access to State governors/governments. We are
currently making progress engaging Abia and Kaduna State governments.
The moral question is: do informal workers and their dependents deserve health insurance and micro-
pension despite paying humongous daily levies, or should they be left to the fate of unaffordable healthcare
and destitution in old age?