Acting Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), Mr. Victor Muruako has vowed to recover all financial losses declaration by government-owned enterprises in the country.
While speaking in Abuja during a joint press briefing with the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), ahead of a two-day national forum on the fiscal responsibility commissions holding next week, Muruako said “In the emerging scenario, if this commission is strengthened, some of these agencies, some of them had the boldness to tell us that we would soon be scrapped: you would write them and they won’t respond-God willing, if this commission survives, and is strengthened, I am sure that all the government funds subsumed as losses in their annual financial statements; they’ll definitely have to be refunded.
“There are a lot of other government agencies that are hiding government’s funds and writing them off as losses. We are shouting that we don’t have money to run government but the money is there. It’s just to allow and strengthen FRC to go and get the money for the government to carry out its developmental programmes.
He added that the Federal Government should set debt limits for public debts, he said that “not fixing the debt limit would allow particularly states and local governments to exceed their limits because you can’t challenge them, the debt limits had never been fixed so you don’t know when they exceed their borrowing capacity.
“The best way to fight corruption is by prudence, fiscal efficiency and bringing about a stronger fiscal responsibility agency not just at the national level but also to encourage the governors; let that regime of fiscal efficiency get down to states because how governors are plunging their states into debts…you find a lot of governors going to borrow money which they don’t need; raising bonds and all that…even as we are talking, some state governors are going to borrow even with few days to the end of their tenure. What are we talking about?
“So the easiest way to fight corruption is to strengthen this commission and ensure that every state, in fact every local government has their own fiscal responsibility agencies. We are asking that the incoming administration should specifically pay attention to strengthening this commission and this commission would bring funds for the operation of the government.”
On the upcoming forum, he said if the states can come around to buy into this new regime of fiscal prudence, it would go long way in stabilising our economy.