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The Senate has noted that some revenues generating agencies’ internally generated revenues are higher than the country’s national budget, regretting that they spent such without remitting funds to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
Senate President Bukola Saraki, who stated this in plenary on Wednesday said, “Some agencies’ internally generated revenue are higher than the national budget. Some make as much as N30 trillion while the national budget for 2017 is about N7 trillion”.
The Senate also said that it would commence legislative processes to scrap non-productive agencies, which neither generate funds for the Federation nor sufficient revenue to be self-sustaining.
It also mandated its ad-hoc committee on “alleged mis-use, under remittance, and other fraudulent activities in collection, accounting, remittance and expenditure of IGR by revenue generating agencies”, to complete and submit its final report within six weeks.
The Chamber took these decisions during the consideration and adoption of the interim report of its ad-hoc committee on “alleged mis-use, under remittance, and other fraudulent activities in collection, accounting, remittance and expenditure of IGR by revenue generating agencies”.
The Senate further mandated the Committee in conjunction with Committee on Judiciary to scrutinize the Fiscal Responsibility Act, with a view to updating the law to be in tune with current realities in the governance of the country.
The Upper Chamber mandated the Committee to work towards ensuring that revenue generating agencies not captured in the Act, were captured, while stringent sanctions should be spelt out for agencies that did not comply with the Act.
Presenting the 12-point report, the chairman, Adeola Olamilekan, said that the committee was mandated to investigate the various forms of infractions by the agencies between January 2012 and December 2016.
According to him, more than 600 agencies were involved, but 92 had so far been investigated.
He said from the committee’s investigation, there was a need to amend the act and other relevant laws where necessary, to ensure compliance with Section 120(I) of the 1999 Constitution.
“The Fiscal Responsibility Act should be amended in a way to compel all agencies and institutions of government to comply with financial regulations regarding income generation, accounting and remittances.
“The Act should further be amended to make all revenue generating agencies to pay 30 per cent of their income generated monthly to the Consolidated Revenue Account before any expenditure,’’ he said.
In his contribution, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, said besides amending the laws, it was imperative to either merge or scrap some of the agencies of government that were not productive or useful to the economy.
He called on the Senate to study the Stephen Orosanye’s Committee report and make further recommendations for the scrapping or merger of some agencies that were consuming government revenue rather than generating revenue.
On his part, Ben Murray-Bruce called for privatization of the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and other similar agencies established in the 1960s.
He also called for the scrapping of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), pointing out that it had outlived its usefulness.
Also, Robert Boroffice said besides review of laws, decisive action should be taken on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for refusing to cooperate with the committee in its investigation.
In his remarks, Saraki asked the committee to work with the committee on Judiciary come out with specific laws to address all the issues raised in the course of the presentation of the report.
He also asked the committee to investigate what the Fiscal Responsibility Commission had been doing with regard to the discharge of its constitutional responsibilities.
Saraki further asked the committee to review provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act that dealt with sanctioning of agencies of government that did not comply with it.
The committee had revealed in its report that 26 agencies shortchanged the Federal Government to the tune of N1.695 trillion between January 2012 and December 2016.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
