The Revenue
Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) said it is
seeking ways to check revenue collecting agencies who fail to remit all
monies to the coffers of government.
One instance of the
abuses has been the refusal by the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) management to pay to the Federation Accounts about
N450 billion realised from its operations since 2009.
Chairman, public
affairs and communications committee of the commission, Zubairu Dada,
said at the ongoing retreat for members in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State
capital, that the RMAFC has realised the huge losses by government
through such malpractices and was determined to promote a new regime of
accountability and transparency in the collection and management of the
country’s revenues.
Building capacity
According to him,
the commission is working on building capacity of its officers to
enable them respond appropriately to such lapses.
“Through the
capacity building programmes, members of the commission would be able
to handle whatever issues that may crop up during the course of
deliberations and would be better placed to properly monitor, mobilise,
and help allocate appropriately available resources among the three
tiers of government,” Mr. Dada said.
Mr. Dada, who spoke
on the significance of synergy and cooperation among the various
stakeholders through harmonisation of ideas and activities, stressed
the need for proper assessment of the respective account records as
well as close monitoring of funds accruals and remittances by the
various revenue generating and collecting agencies domiciled with the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ensure that they were up to date.
The Nigerian
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the body that
audits Nigeria’s oil revenue receipts, in its latest report issued on
February 1, indicted the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
for lack of transparency in the measurement of revenue flows from
exploration of oil and gas.
The NEITI report,
which covered activities in the oil and gas sector between 2006 and
2008, also revealed impropriety in the sale of tax and royalty oil by
the corporation.
Improved accounting
“There is a long
running dispute between NNPC and PSC (production sharing contract)
operators as to the interpretation and calculation of cost under the
production sharing contract.
Improved accounting
procedures are required to increase the transparency of NNPC’s handling
of these components of the proceeds of crude sales,” the report noted.
RMAFC chairman,
Elias Mbam, also expressed concern over the poor level of revenue
accruals in the Federation Account, assuring that steps were being
taken to ensure that all revenues generated from either oil, gas,
Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), or Nigeria Customs Service
(NCS) and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) were properly
accounted for.
According to him,
apart from plugging all possible leakages in the revenue system, the
commission under his leadership would ensure that all the revenues are
not only collected, but adequately accounted for from the point of
collection to the distribution to the three tiers of government.
