The Senate has blamed the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, for poor monitoring and remittance by revenue-generating agencies.
It lamented that only 60 of the 300 agencies generating revenues were being monitored by the office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), thereby creating leakages for corruption.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Solomon Adeola, raises the concern when the AGF appeared at a budget meeting on Thursday.
Adeola said, “How do we monitor all the revenues coming into the confers of Government? How can we know what comes in if we don’t have this mechanism in place?
“It is imperative for us to have a robust platform through which the Government can monitor whatever comes into the confers. Government can’t fund its budget. We need to check these things.”
Responding, Idris admitted there was no mechanism through to monitor the revenues of the Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).
He said, “We are trying to come up with something to that effect. As far as TSA is concerned, all revenues coming in, we have access to them.
“I agree that there is a need for us to take advantage of digitalisation and know all the revenues coming into the Government confers. There is a need for a robust system. As for the TSA, we need to click before we can see what comes in or out.
“We are already operating a mechanism through which we make deductions quarterly from revenue-generating agencies. These revenue-generating agencies are not remitting monies as at when due,” he added.
Adeola, who was not convinced about the explanation, decried the monopoly of remittances into government confers, wondering why only one platform was being used by the Federal Government.
He said, “The issues raised should be part of it. We have over 300 revenue-generating agencies in the country. You’re only focusing on 60. What about the others? This is a divide and rule system.
“There have been complaints and challenges with Remita. With the kind of revenues we have, we can’t rely on only one payment platform. We need to bring in more. As soon as possible, we want to see more revenue platforms come on board.
Responding, the AGF said, “For revenue generation, we have only one agency which is Remita. We are going to open up the system and those qualified will be brought in.”
