Senate Indicts Top Government Agencies of Remittance Underpayment

The Senate of Nigeria has accused Government Owned Enterprises of remitting below the appropriate funds into the federation account.

Senator Adeola Solomon

On Wednesday, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Solomon Adeola asserted the accusation at a public hearing on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure and Fiscal Strategy Paper.

At the event organized by his panel, he emphasized that top government owned enterprises like the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, among others are yet to remit their operational surplus to the consolidated revenue fund over the years.

In his claim, he said, “In budgeting, some revenue generating agencies spend their revenue hiding under the disguise that what accrued to them is not enough for them to carry out their functions.

“From the preliminary investigation carried out by this committee, our findings are not palatable at all. A lot of heads of agencies have taken over the agencies as their personal property.

“They have decided to embark on a spending spree with nobody challenging them.

“Out of the 60 Government Owned Enterprises, I can conveniently say that agencies like the NNPC, I don’t know when last they contributed from their excess revenue into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, except recently when they declared profit.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria, out of an average budget of about N2.3tn a year, it is expected that at the end of every financial year, whatever accrues to you as excess revenue, a certain portion of it must be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. As we speak, within the last five to six years, CBN has not contributed anything.”

During the event, Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Colonial Hameed Ali (retd.), expressed frustrations over the inability of his agency to raise enough revenue from tariff on import.

He later, urged the legislation to impose excise duty on carbonated drinks.

“Today, Coca-Cola is producing in Nigeria and paying no excise. It is only in Nigeria that Coca-Cola is producing and not paying excise duty.” He alleged.

The organizer, Senator Adeola, while welcoming his guests, said the essence of the event was to seek ways to increase revenue generation to reduce national borrowing pattern.