Recent reports have indicated that the Federal Government is beaming its searchlights on revenue generating agencies so as to curb corruption.
Federal Government might soon go after heads of revenue generating agencies that had been engaged in financial abuses and failure to remit huge amount of revenues generated by their organizations to the federal purse.
Media reports gathered on Thursday night from the recently concluded session of the National Economic Council (NEC) in Abuja show that 18 core revenue generating agencies, such as NNPC, will be audited by KPMG, an international audit firm, while an indigenous firm, SIAO, will audit other non-core revenue generating agencies.
The matter was brought to the NEC by the Ministry of Finance, represented by the Minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun and other senior officials.
Apparently, the ministry had been carrying out some investigations on the agencies.
Mrs Adeosun on Thursday confirmed that indeed, high level of financial misappropriation has been going on in some revenue generating agencies.
According to an unnamed government official, “this ungodly practice has been going on for over a decade, making the government to lose revenue in trillions of Naira and we have reached a point in this country to put a stop to the fraud and bring the culprits to account for their misdeeds.”
The official confirmed that some MDA officials had been smiling to the bank while the Federal Government is left with little revenue to meet its obligations.
There are also reports of MDAs collecting revenue in foreign currency and remitting in local currency into the Federation Account.
According to Mr Willie Obiano, the governor of Anambra State who attended the event, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, reported that besides NNPC, NIMASA and NPA, other agencies involved in such practice were FIRS, Shippers Council, Airport Authority and Nigeria Immigration Service.
He added that the official reported that the introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) had resolved the problem as all accounts were now under the CBN.
The Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) is said to have devised and put in place to monitor the generation of funds and disbursement by revenue generating MDAs.
A top administration officials said;
“Already, some of the discoveries have been catalogued and forwarded to both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) for further investigation and prosecution of those found wanting. Some persons have been invited by the anti-graft agencies for questioning following some representations made by the Ministry of Finance. In the process of investigation, it was discovered that some of the organizations hide under existing legislations that permit their use of a fraction of what they generate as running cost to fritter away as much as 90% of the total revenue they generate, even when the Federal Government is still directing funding both capital and recurrent expenditure of such agencies.”
The official further said:
“Apart from outright embezzlement of funds, it has been discovered that some of the organisations indulge in very irregular financial activities including paying salaries above RMFAC specifications, converting official cars to personal ownership, monetizing medical allowance arbitrarily, paying for unapproved overseas travels and lavish training allowances, granting excessive personal loans as well as cases of unapproved mortgages.”
“It was learnt that in some cases, brand new cars were sold out two months after purchase at 25% of cost price; while hospitals that rake huge revenues from medical bills remained without functional generators and basic facilities whereas the revenue generated had been frittered away on frivolous subheads.”
“It might interest you to know that for some time now, both the OAGF and the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC) have been carrying out subtle auditing of the revenues of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Federal Government-owned Hospitals and schools and have discovered mind-boggling financial abuses, including misappropriation of funds and outright fraud.”
During the event, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who presided at the NEC, reiterated the Federal Government’s policy that NNPC and other agencies must present budget for approval before spending in line with the TSA.