The Chairman Joint Senate Committee on the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper, Senator Sani Musa, said no federal agency would henceforth be allowed to spend the revenues they generate.
Musa, who is also the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, has therefore directed all revenue generating agencies in the country to furnish his panel with details of remittances they had so far made this year.
He further directed the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to collate details of the remittances and the list of those that were defaulting.
Musa gave the directive at the ongoing public hearing by a joint committee of the Senate on MTEF chaired by him.
The panel including the Committees on Appropriations; National Planning and Economic Affairs; and Local and Foreign Debts are engaging heads of federal ministries, departments and agencies on the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy.
Musa said, “The National Assembly is working hard to protect the economy of the country.
“The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited for instance, is a Nigerian entity it must abide by the Nigerian rules, it must abide by the ground norms. When it is due to remit, it must do so.
“No agency of the government should come before us to say they are exempted from remitting revenues to the consolidated revenue funds.”
Musa added, “The Accountant General should take note of the agencies that had yet to remit their revenues to the CRF.
“You should liaise with the Committee’s secretariat so that we could find time to reconvene like this to sort out those issues.”
Musa was responding to a presentation by the Nigerian Institute of Legal and Advanced Studies and the Nigerian Maritime Academy on delayed remittances to the CRA
He insisted that the MDAs should present a breakdown of their revenue collection and remittances from January to date to the committee.
He said MDAs were aware that any action in breach of financial regulations was a breach of the law.
He said agencies must work toward remitting the revenue due to government upon collection without delay.
He also requested that all receipts of remittances be made available to the committee.
Musa raised issues of disparity of revenue projections and remittances based on presentations of Nigerian Communication Commission and presentation by Office of Accountant General for the Federation.
He also urged the Accountant General of the Federation to interface with MDAs for reconciliation of remittances made and revenue projections in the 2026-2027 MTEF and FSP.
He also requested for detailed breakdown of remittances arising from revenue collected from stamp duties by the MDAs.
Musa said there was the need for proper reconciliation of the remittances in line with the nation’s financial laws and Fiscal Responsibility Act.
The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mrs Oluwatoyin Madein, said her office do engage the MDAs to reconcile their accounts and remmitances made to government in line with the financial laws.
Also the Director -General of the Debt Management Office, Mrs Patience Oniha while responding to a question on new government loan request said Nigeria needs to challenge itself on revenue generation given its projection on debt services.
Among the MDAs that presented their revenue projections for the 2024-2026 MTEF and FSP were Office of Accountant General of the Federation, Nigeria Maritime Academy, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
Others are the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, Development Bank of Nigeria, Debt Management Office, Office among others.
The Nigerian Communication Commission Joint Matriculation and Examination Board and the Federal Mortgage Bank were asked to appear at another day for re- presentation of their expenditure and revenue projections.
Earlier, the Accountant General said that the ministry was project an IGR of N3.1tn
Detailing the ministry’s revenue details in three years, she said, “From the federation account, in 2020 the budgeted revenue was put N7.9tn, and the actual gross revenue was N8tn while net distribution was N7.6tn.
He added, “In 2021 budget was N9.2tn while the actual gross inflow was N9.3tn and the net inflow was N7.7tn.
“In 2022, the budget was N15tn, the actual revenue was N12.2tn, the net distribution was N8.6tn.
“In 2023, the Revenue projection was N13,7tn, as at October, the total revenue inflow was N12.4tn”
“Under the Stamp Duty, the budget for 2020 was N17.3bn while the actual was N119bn.
The Accountant General added, “In 2021, the budgeted amount was N16.8bn, while the generated amount N33.94bn.
“In the year 2022, the budget stamp duties was N16.8bn while the generated amount was N53.5bn.
“In 2023, the budgeted amount was N44.46bn and the generated amount was N53bn.
“For the IGR in 2020 was N871.3bn, while the actual amount N532.9bn”
She stated, “In 2021, the budgeted amount was N1.06tn while the generated amount was N1.06tn. In 2022 the budgeted amount was N2.2tn while the amount collected was N1.39tn.
“In 2023, the budget was N2.6tn, while actual amount was N1.42tn as st September 2023.
“We can only project IGR for 2024 and we put that on 20% mark up of the budget of 2023 which is N3.1tn,” she added.
