RMAFC, EFCC, ICPC Probe Remittances Into Federation Account
The Federal Government is set to beam its searchlight into revenue generated and remittances made into the Federation Account by its agencies between 2016 and 2019.
Some of the federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have been alleged to withhold revenue generated by them from the Federation Account.
The Chairman of Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Elias Mbam, disclosed that a nationwide verification and reconciliation on revenue inflows and remittances from relevant organizations to the appropriate government treasury will be carried out in the first week of October 2020.
Mbam, who made this disclosure at an interactive session organised for the consultants engaged for the exercise, said that the verification and reconciliation will cover the period – 1st January, 2016 to 31st December, 2019.
The RMAFC chairman said the revenue and remittances’ books of some government agencies will scrutinised by the Commission in collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).
He added, “The collaboration with EFCC and ICPC is to provide close monitoring of the recovered accruable funds to the Federation Account.”
He advised the consultants not to join issues with any defaulting organisation, adding that they should submit their established reports to the RMAFC through the Coordinating Committee of the project.
“The RMAFC’s mandate includes monitoring all revenue accruals into the Federation Account and disbursement while blocking leakages.”
He stated that the mandate is in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s charge to the Commission to use all legal ways and means to block all revenue leakages and maximize revenue inflow to the Federation account.
The Secretary to the RMAFC, Mr. M.B. Shehu, reminded the participating consultants that the Federal Government takes the issue of revenue generation seriously, particularly with the current dwindling oil revenue in the international market and the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In his remarks, the representative of the acting EFCC Chairman, Hamza Abdullahi, thanked the RMAFC for finding it worthy to collaborate with EFCC in tracking and blocking revenue leakages while recovering all revenue accruable to the Federation Account.
Abdullahi said, “EFCC has helped to recover more than N300 billion naira in a similar collaboration with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
“We will not compromise the EFCC’s track record and will ensure that every revenue defaulter will be made to face the full wrath of the law.”
InsideBusiness NG recalls that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, had last Tuesday said 10 revenue directors would be deployed to some revenue-generating agencies to monitor their revenue and remittances’ books.
The revenue supervisors, according to her, are be deployed to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigerian Ports Authority, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and six other government-owned entities.
The other entities are the Corporate Affairs Commission, Nigerian Communication Commission, Nigeria Shippers Council, Department of Petroleum Resources, and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.
Ahmed disclosed this at a three-day orientation programme organised by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for treasury directors.
The minister explained that the deployment of the revenue supervisors was to achieve transparency and accountability of government revenue, improve revenue performance, and provide sustainable source of funding for the government budget execution.
“It is a fact that oil revenue is an exogenous variable to us and is highly volatile. Continuous reliance on it would mean that our public expenditures will always be dwindled by the shock in the Global Oil market Price which is not within our control.
“One of the possible solutions is to look into the non-oil revenues, take advantage of the potentials and make it robust. We have seen the results on the increase in VAT through the Finance Act 2019 and efforts in diversifying the revenue base of Government by the Revenue generating agencies.
“An important sector with huge potentials is the revenue generation by the Federal Government Owned Entities,” she said.
The minister gave the job specification of the revenue supervisors to include: involvement in the revenue operations of the FGOEs, better understanding of business processes and operations of the FGOEs, and improving transparency and accountability in revenue reporting by the FGOEs.
“The discharge of these duties will be aided with the deployment of Information Technology.
“The Integrated Revenue Monitoring System is being put in place to help the monitoring of the revenues of the FGOEs online real-time and to ensure its improved transparency and accountability,” she noted.
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