AGoF calls for arrest, prosecution of 35 govt accounting officers for non remittance of N54.69bn generated revenue

The office of the Auditor General of the Federation, Anthony Ayine, has called for the arrest and prosecution of accounting officers of 35 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for failure to remit N54.69 billion revenue they generated in 2018 to government coffers.

The action he said, adversely deprived the Federal government of much needed resource to finance Nigeria’s socio economic needs.

This call was contained in the just released consolidated Financial Statements for 2018, published on the auditor-general’s website and obtained by Ripples Nigeria.

In the report, Ayine called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission(ICPC) to go after MDAs for the unaccounted sum.

“Given the failure of the Accounting Officers of the defaulting MDAs in remitting the amounts due to the Federal Government, the accounting Officers and every other officer responsible for the infraction be surcharged accordingly,” he recommended.

According to the report, 18 revenue generating agencies failed their statutory obligation to credit N48.5 billion to the consolidated revenue fund while 17 statutory deductions from the public by way of Value Added tax(VAT), WithholdingTax (WHT), PAYE, Stamp Duties and other statutory deduction amounting to N5.4 billion agencies were also missing.

Such action contravenes the Financial Regulation of civil service commission section 3112 (i) & (ii).

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Leading the chart for MDAs with unremitted internal generated revenue is Bank of Industry with a sum of N46.2 billion; followed by National Insurance Commission N1.05 billion; Environmental Health Officers Council N29.5 million and Financial Reporting Council N104.9 million.

Others are Federal Medical Center, Owerri 8.5 Million, Jos University Teaching Hospital 333 Million, Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency 42.3 Million. Click here to see full list.

Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund led the category for statutory deductions collected from Nigerians worth N1.43 billion unaccounted for.

Other MDAs under this category include Nigeria institute of legislative studies with a statutory unremitted revenue of N577.6 million; National Insurance Commission with N25.8 million; Lagos University Teaching Hospital N945.4 million.

The N54.69 billion unaccounted revenues highlight the total financial infraction concern raised in the report worth N105.6 billion.

Others include, irregularities in payment and expenditure worth 18.36 billion, irregularities in awarding contract and execution of payment worth N23.48 billion, store item not taken and store charge N8.38 billion, unretired advances worth N354.2 million and circumvention of procurement process worth N371.7 million.

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