The Federal Government on Tuesday concluded the winding down of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) in line with the recommendations of Steve Oronsanye’s committee on restructuring of federal agencies and parastatals. Elias Mbam, chairman, Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), gave the hint during the 2014/2015 budget defence held at the instance of the House Representatives’ Committee on Finance. He disclosed that the chief executives of both commissions had earlier signed relevant documents on the winding down of the commission.
“I want to say that the white paper of the restructuring of parastatals of MDAs generally gives additional assignments to the commission because from that white paper, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission will be scrapped. “The process of winding up of that commission has reached advanced stage. In fact, today, we met in my office for a technical session on how to absorb their buildings and personnel,” he disclosed. Mbam, however, noted that the process would be concluded when the white paper is approved by the National Assembly. On his part, Victor Muruako, acting chairman of Fiscal Responsibility Commission, expressed regret over Federal Government’s resolve to submerge the commission under RMAFC.
He disclosed that the commission recovered about N360 billion operating surplus from some revenue generating agencies over the past six years. While calling for the House intervention, Muruako said “before this time
we thought it was over for us, but being here again today I think there’s yet a little hope for us. It is a big privilege to address you on the budget implementation for 2014.
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“In the horizon by the implementation of the Federal Government’s committee on…the Oronsaye’s committee report, which approved the scrapping of the commission, we’ve been attending various meetings in respect of implementation of the white paper. “As public servants, we owe it as a duty to government to ensure that we follow up with the decision of the government. However, sir, we wish to intimidate you that on our own, we strived to see how we can continue to thresh on and discharge our mandate until the repeal of the Act because we are conscious of the fact that the Fiscal Responsibility Commission was a creation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007.”
