Major revenue generating agencies and parastatals on Wednesday in Abuja protested against Federal Government’s directive on the closure of all revenue accounts of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government. Representatives of some of the agencies who spoke during an interactive session held at the instance of the House Committee on Finance, including Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA); National Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC); Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC); Nigerian Television Authority (NTA); Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC); Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), and Nigerian Maritime and Safety Agency (NIMASA), argued that the new policy would affect their operations.
Under the arrangement, all revenues generated by the MDAs into the deposit money banks are to be paid into the FGN e-collection account, BusinessDay gathered. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, coordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, recently issued a policy directive for all the agencies to close down revenue accounts and channel all such revenues to a unified account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Abdulmumini Jibrin, chairman, House Committee on Finance, who disclosed the receipt of over 100 petitions from the affected agencies, stressed the need to interface with the affected agencies with a view to providing safe landing for some agencies with certain peculiarities. Jibrin, who expressed concern over NIMASA’s failure to remit revenues generated to government’s coffers, said, “We have a running battle with you before you were compelled to pay about N3 billion. You said the president gave you permission and you ended up spending about N5 billion to N6 billion. Go and comply in your own interest
. You have already provoked them by going to court. You cannot fight the government that employed you.” To this extent, he directed NIMASA to submit details of the N44 billion remitted into the cabotage account to the committee as well as its revenue and expenditure profile, adding that the circular on the closure of accounts of the MDAs will soon be dispatched to all the affected agencies including NPA which operates about 40 accounts. Giving clarifications on the policy, Dipo Fatokun, CBN’s director, banking and payments system department, disclosed that the bank was “in support of the policy that MDAs should sweep their accounts to CBN as it will assist the apex bank’s monetary policy.”
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