From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) yesterday, began the reconciliation of revenue remittances into the Federation Account from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2019. The Commission made this known at a stakeholders meeting with heads of the revenue regulatory agencies of government in Abuja.
Speaking at the meeting, the Chairman of the Commission, Mr Elias Mbam, stated that the meeting became necessary to familiarise the regulatory agencies of the mandate and activities of the Commission and to seek the collaboration with it particularly in its ongoing exercise of reconciliation of revenue remittances into the Federation Account. “It is the responsibility of the Commission to monitor all the accruals of revenue to and from the federation account while blocking leakages” he said. He called for increased collaboration and co-operation from the revenue regulatory agencies for increased revenue accruals to the federation account.
Mbam noted that in order to achieve the desired goal during the exercise, the Commission had engaged the services of consultants, adding that it is working in collaboration with Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).He recalled that while inaugurating the new members in 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari, had charged the Commission to use all legal means to strengthen its monitoring mechanism and block all revenue leakages to the federation account. In pursuit of that mandate, and to ensure optimal results, the Commission deems it necessary to fully collaborate with all regulatory agencies of revenue collecting agencies.
In a statement, the Public Relations Officer of RMAFC, Mr Christian Nwachukwu, said the Commission’s boss had called on heads of the revenue regulatory agencies to ensure that agencies under them co-operate with the consultants currently in the field by releasing their books and records to ease their job.
Earlier, the Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, had at the just-concluded Nigerian Economic Summit, noted that the problem the government was having was how to increase revenue to be able to pay back the the myriads of loans the government has collected.