By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Worried by the mismanagement of public funds and short-changing of government despite the current economic recession, the Senate has concluded plans to investigate agencies of the Federal Government making money for the country.
In a motion moved by a member of the Senate on Tuesday, Mr Olamilekan Adeola, the upper legislative chamber said it would probe these agencies and ensure they do the right thing.
To this effect, an adhoc committee has been set up to investigate the alleged misuse, non-remittance and other fraudulent practices involved in revenue generation and utilization by all revenue generating agencies between 2012 and 2016.
The committee, to be chaired by Mr Adeola, has Mr Yusuf Abubakar, Mr Andy Uba, Mr John Enoh, Mrs Fatima Raji-Rasaki and Yahaya Abdullahi as members.
In his motion, Mr Adeola argued that some of these agencies were involved in the practice of non-remittance or under-remittance of revenues they generate to the treasury in violation of the law.
According to him, these agencies are mandated to remit of all government revenues into the Consolidated Revenue Fund as stipulated by Section 80 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, but lamented that this has not been followed.
He noted that audits of the affected bodies indicated possible mismanagement of revenue generated.
Buttressing his point, Mr Adeola said in a particular year, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) made N178 billion in revenue, but spent the whole money as expenditure.
He stressed that the Senate needs to checkmate and block these leakages and force the agencies do the right thing.
Also backing Mr Adeola’s point, the Senate Deputy Leader, Mr Bala Na’Allah, pointed out that an examination body generated N3 billion on sales of forms and claimed it spent N2.9 billion on printing of forms.
Adedapo Adesanya