From Jane Okafor, Abuja
The chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa has commended the Senate Committee of Finance for its investigations into the internally generated revenues of MDAs and the payment of 1% Stamp Duty by contractors on all contracts awarded by MDAs between2014-2020.
The chairman made the commendation when he appeared before the Senator Solomon Adeola - led Senate Committee on Finance as part of the over 700 MDAs under investigation by the committee.
“After observing the proceedings and the process of investigation of the Committee, I am happy with what is happening here. It is a good development that the committee is working towards blocking revenue leakages.
"At this point in the nation’s history, it is not much about generating revenue as much as blocking leakages of revenue generated and still being generated by all these agencies of government,” he stated.
Mr. Bawa said he would have been happy to go away with one of the heads of agencies immediately from the revelations that the Committee unearthed while observing the documents presented by the agency, stressing that he would be ready to partner with the committee as the process goes on and hopefully get the report of the committee for further action.
As part of setting example for blockage of leakages, he stated that since his assumption of office, he has created four new departments in EFCC, two of which, namely the Procurement Department and the Internal Audit to ensure that due process is followed and there are no audit queries.
Bawa said he would like to see other MDAs adopt the template of EFCC.
Senator Adeola had earlier enunciated that the focus of the investigation is informed by the need to curb recurrent federal budget deficit and the resort to borrowing while agencies of government earn and often frivolously spend generated revenues of government.
The All Progressives Congress((APC, Lagos West) Senator added that so far the committee had made progress with many agencies paying back unremitted revenues in tens of millions with treasury receipts to show.
“It is clear that we can no longer continue to run government as business as usual with some agencies not audited for over years, agencies collecting funds for expenditures during budget process without declaring revenue they are bringing to the table."
"The practice is for them to spend generated government revenues illegally while still collecting funds from the government that had to resorts to borrowing to fund them,” Senator Adeola stated in a release by Chief Kayode Odunaro, his Media Adviser.
According to him, during the Committee's sitting, the Federal College of Education, Okene was ordered to pay back to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation the total sum of N242 million it generated and spent contrary to the 1999 Constitution and the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 within 5 months.
Also, following a tripartite committee of the Accountant General Office, the Fiscal Responsibility Commision(FRC) and the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission(NERC) formed by the Committee, the account of NERC was reconciled with N888million outstanding to be paid to CRF by NERC.
Other agencies that appeared before the committee for the day are Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC, Federal Medical Centre, Yenegoa, Nigeria Film Corporation, Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar and the NNPC among others with some cleared while others were requested to provide additional documentation.
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