Remit FG funds by Dec 31, Finance ministry warns 5 erring MDAs

Five government departments and agencies, which failed to comply with the directive to remit all Federal government funds in their kitty have been given up to December 31 2016 to do so.

The deadline was handed down by the special committee set up by the Ministry of Finance to look into the non remittance of funds by federal government MDAs.

The defaulting MDAs include the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) National Pensions Commission (PenCom), Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

No less than 13 agencies and five departments were in November 2016 indicted by the committee for not remitting funds meant for the Federal Government through the Fiscal Responsibility Commission.

The committee was then mandated to go after the defaulting agencies, whose records were said to have shown that they collectively withheld more than N400 billion accruing to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) from 2009 to 2016.

A statement by an aide to Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, made available to Ripples Nigeria said the committee, headed by the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, had so far recovered less than 0.53 per cent of the total money, despite the directive from the Presidency asking all agencies to clear their financial outstanding with the committee on or before mid December.

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It further said that only six of the agencies had been able to meet with the committee with part of their outstanding.

Among the few that have so far complied with the directive are, the Nigeria Shippers Council, the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, and the Nigeria Export Promotion Council, all of which had remitted a total of N1.5 billion.

The official further said that by the time all the agencies complied with the directive, about 3.5 percent of the anticipated internal revenue to back up the N7.29 trillion 2017 budgets could be available.

But management of most of the agencies and parastatals said the issue of non remittance of funds was being exaggerated.

A top management staff of one of the agencies said: “What if at the time that all the department and agencies present their papers majority of them are found not having any outstanding remittance to make to the Consolidated Accounts?”

 

 

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