By Dipo Olowookere
Federal Government has disclosed that it has recovered an additional N793 million unremitted operating surpluses from three revenue generating agencies accused of short changing the government.
This was revealed in a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday in Abuja.
It said this was made possible by the efforts of the Recovery Committee set up two weeks ago by the Ministry.
The Committee was tasked to recover unremitted N450 billion operating surpluses from Federal revenue-generating Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The surpluses are legally classified as a Federal Treasury Revenue.
The Committee immediately swung into action by issuing demand notices to 17 of the initial 33 affected Agencies, out of which it met with 10.
They included the National Shippers Council, Nigeria Export Promotion Council, National Health Insurance Scheme, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigeria Communication Commission.
The rest were Nigeria Postal Service, National Pension Commission, Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company, Raw Materials Research and Development Council and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria.
According to the statement, the recoveries, totalling N793 million, were made from the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), N278 million; Nigeria Shippers Council, N407 million and Nigeria Export Promotion Council, N108 million.
“So far, the cumulative total amount recovered is N1.44 billion, given the earlier recovery of N650 million from the Nigeria Shippers Council.
“Several other agencies were in the process of submitting repayment plan for approval.
Meanwhile, four agencies that were unable to make it to the meeting due to short notice have been rescheduled to appear before the Recovery Committee.
“They are the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Pensions Commission (PENCOM), Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA),” it stated.
Adedapo Adesanya