Reports have revealed that the Nigerian Senate is bent on directing the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to remove 60 agencies from the list of agencies funded from the Federal Allocation.
The agencies which include the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), among others are believed to generate enough funds to fund their overhead costs themselves.
The decision may be based on a October, 2019 report where the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Alex Okoh revealed before the Senate Committee on Privatization that 600 agencies got $3bn per year as Federal allocation with no returns to the federation account.
According to a report by Punch, the Joint Committee on Finance and National Planning has resolved to present the proposal on the floor of the Senate when plenary resumes on September 15.
During a five day interaction between the committee and Federal Government revenue generating agencies which ended on Tuesday, the poor revenue profile, and poor remittances to the Federation account as well as heavy running costs were highlighted by members of the committee during the interactive session.
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The Committee Chairman, Senator Solomon Adeola told the affected agencies that they didn’t need federal allocation from the federation account. He said instead, the agencies would become responsible for funding the national budget and also bear the cost of overhead and employee expenses.
The Senator said;
“We want to put an end to indolence and wastage of revenue. Many of the agencies have more than enough to remain on their own but they are still being funded from the national budget. We are doing this in the interest of Nigerians because we are tired of passing budgets that are not implementable due to deficit.”
The senator said further that some of the agencies have willingly agreed to stop being funded by the Federal Government while a list of other agencies set to be de-listed is being compiled.
“We have invited all revenue generating agencies and ministries that are directly affected to ask questions bothering on the document before us and to deliberate on how we can improve the revenue of the Federal Government.
“From what we have seen and witnessed, it goes to show that we have a lot of work to do in the areas of ensuring that all government revenues get to the coffers of the government. Frivolous expenditure being used to take away the revenue will be blocked. This is just the beginning of good things to come. Once this has commenced, we would have a lot of savings and seriousness on the part of the government agencies.”
With the repositioning that we have started, we will ensure that all revenue generating agencies play their critical roles in supporting government’s programmes and policies.”