"Heads to roll over revenue diversion"-FG

The Federal Government has warned it would deal
with heads of agencies that divert revenues
instead of paying same to the Central Bank of
Nigeria.
Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun announced this
in an interview with State House reporters after
yesterday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC)
meeting.
She was answering questions regarding heads of
agencies that had collected revenues in dollars
and remitted same in naira.
There is an ongoing audit of revenue-generating
agencies by the international firms of KPMG and
PriceWaterHouse Coopers (PWC) to carry out a
forensic audit of such agencies.
Such agencies include Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Federal Inland
Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Customs Service
(NCS), Department of Petroleum Resources
(DPR), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC), Corporate
Affairs Commission (CAC), Nigeria Ports Authority
(NPA), Nigeria Communications Commission
(NCC), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria
(FAAN), Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA),
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety
Agency (NIMASA), Nigeria Deposit Insurance
Company (NDIC), among others.
The minister said: “On the issue on the heads of
(revenue) agencies that remitted monies in naira
instead of dollars ... what I would say is, let’s see
the results of those audits because it would be
unfair to pre-empt the outcomes of those audits.
“The reason why we’re having the process is that
in the past nobody was punished. So, some
people have been spending as they please. So,
we’ve to look at how you’ve been spending.”
She revealed that agencies such as the Nigerian
Maritime Administration and Safety Agency
(NIMASA) and some foreign missions also
remitted in naira, revenues they collected in
dollars.
“We’ve done a comprehensive audit of all the
agencies that actually collect money in foreign
currency and remit in naira. The requirement is
that such monies should go to the CBN which
should exchange the money into naira...we’re
now doing an audit to identify other agencies, but
what we’ve identified is that the agency
concerned was (NIMASA).
“But we discovered that there are other agencies
we have not identified that also collect funds in
foreign currencies, including our foreign missions.
So, we’re doing a full audit of all those accounts
and to ensure that all those revenues now are
converted in accordance with the extant
procedures and guidelines.”
“Under FRA, these boards and corporations who
generate our revenue are supposed to generate
an operating surplus, 80% of which is to be
credited to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. But
we’ve discovered that many agencies have never
credited anything and never generated any
operating surplus including some whose salaries
and overhead capital is paid by the federal
government.
“We also discussed that in some cases, because
some agencies have a track record and history of
making sure that every naira they earned is spent,
that we’ll go in and audit agencies under Section
107 (8) of the Financial Regulations. The
Accountant-General, who is under the Ministry of
Finance, has the powers to go in and make
inquiries about how public money is spent. So,
we’ll be sending in auditors to some agencies
where we believe everything that their cost is
simply excessive and not in keeping with our
expectations. The expected outcome of this is
that the internally generated revenue which the
new budget is banking on will actually become a
reality. So, that was the principal discussion and
everybody in the cabinet endorsed the initiative.
“We’re going to make every naira count and in
order to make every naira count, we’ve to know
how much is coming in and control how it goes
out.
“All the ministers concerned agreed that enough
is enough, and they even identified boards and
agencies under them where they know that
revenue is being diverted. So, the key message is
that change has now come to those agencies,
boards and corporations who had been hitherto
operating without any control”, she added.
“They generate revenue which they spend without
any form of control. So, one of the big initiatives
and changes of this administration is to bring all
those agencies into line, to insist that they must
submit a budget, that their budget must be
subject to approval and they must operate within
that budget so that the surplus meant to come to
the federal government can be seen to be used as
appropriate.
“For clarification, let me explain that in non-oil
economies, these are revenues of government. It
was because we had oil in the past that nobody
has ever really looked at MDAs, NCC, some many
agencies so many boards of government in their
hundreds.
“We had issued a circular in December requesting
that they send us their budget and what we
discussed today (yesterday) was the
responsibility of the ministers to ensure that
whether those agencies have boards or not, those
budgets are prepared.
The Ministry of Finance is going to sit down with
the supervising ministers and the boards
concerned where necessary to go through their
budgets and make sure that they’re reasonable,
that the costs are not inflated”, she said.
Adeosun said all the ministers concerned
identified boards and agencies under them where
revenue was being diverted.