From Uche Usim, Abuja
The Federal Government has recovered N793 million from three revenue-generating federal agencies out of the N450 billion unremitted operating surpluses of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) between 2010 and 2015.
The N793 million was coughed out by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) – N278 million; the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) – N407 million, and Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) – N108 million.
So far, the cumulative total amount recovered stands at N1.44 billion given the earlier recovery of N650 million from the NSC even as several other agencies were in the process of submitting repayment plan for approval.
The Information Director of the Finance Ministry, Salisu Na’inna Dambatta, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja said the feat so far achieved followed relentless efforts of the Recovery Committee set up two weeks ago by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.
According to him, the committee was tasked to recover unremitted N450 billion operating surpluses from federal revenue-generating MDAs, adding that the surpluses were 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, namely NSC, NEPC, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The rest include Nigeria Postal Service (NPS), National Pension Commission (PenCom), Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBETC), Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN),” he stated.
Dambatta added that 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), PenCom, Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA),” he explained.
Recall that the Minister of Finance announced at a media conference on December 1, 2016, that many revenue generating Federal Government agencies had not remitted the operating surpluses from the revenues they generated totalling N450 billion from 2010 to date.
“The agencies are required to pay the operating surpluses to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federal Government not later than one month following the statutory deadline for publishing each corporation’s account as provided at Section 22(2) of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission Act 2007,” he said.
Dambatta quoted the Minister as expressing optimism that more agencies would comply with the government’s directives in the weeks ahead.