The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives is winding up its investigations into alleged non-remittance of revenue to the Federation Account by 31 federal government agencies in a few days, LEADERSHIP SUNDAY has learned.
According to section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution: The Federation shall maintain a special account to be called “the Federation Account” into which shall be paid all revenues collected by Government of the Federation, except the proceeds from the income tax of the personnel of the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the Ministry or Department of government charged with the responsibility for Foreign Affairs and the residents of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja.
The constitution under section 80(4) mandates the Senate and the House of Representatives to approve before any expenditure is made by any agency in the country.
The section reads: “No money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly.”
In an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, a member of the House, Hon. Orker Jev (ACN/Buruku-Benue), revealed that a Public Accounts panel is expected to present its report on the non-remitting agencies before the House in a few days.?
While responding to questions on how the National Assembly was tackling the issue of recalcitrant agencies who don’t remit their internally generated revenue (IGR) to the coffers of government, he said: “The chairman of Public Accounts raised the issue, and I think I remember very well it was referred to his committee to tackle and submit a report on the floor of the House in a short time. I don’t think they were given a lot of time to investigate and submit their report to the House.”
But in a curious twist, the same House has buried its earlier report that indicted the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) for allegedly squandering N7.2billion loan it took from unnamed banks in the 1990s.
An Investigative report which was completed in March, this year, but was never considered until the 6th Assembly lapsed, in one of its recommendations, wanted the Federal Housing Authority, FHA to pay a cumulative debt of N7.2billion to banks.
The debt, incurred during the regime of the late military leader Gen. Sani Abacha , according to the House Report, has not been paid by the government.
The report stated in part: “The then managing director of Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Engineer Ibrahim Ali, who obtained the loan on behalf of Federal Housing Authority (FHA), and failed to make attempt to repay the loan did not act in the best interest of the nation. Similarly, the then minister of finance, Chief Anthony Ani, who signed the agreement on behalf of government did not act in the best interest of the nation for failing to demand repayment of the loan as stipulated in the agreement.”
The report also stated: “The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) should be granted a further 12 months’ moratorium with effect from January 2011 before commencing repayment of the loan; by this arrangement, the repayment should commence in January 2012 at a sum of N500million annually.”
The report warned: “Henceforth, the public officials who commit government into business or agreement that end up in a loss, through their action or inaction, should be prosecuted or sanctioned.” It observed that, “There is an obvious unwillingness and insincerity on the part of the management of Federal Housing Authority (FHA) regarding the repayment of the loan, the relevant anti-corruption agencies should be invited to assist in the recovery.”
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY confirmed that the report was listed seven times by the then Rules and Business Committee headed by Ita Enang (now a senator).
The 2011 budget estimates were presented before the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan with an in-built deficit of N1.3trillion.
The House of Representatives later found that the NPA and 30 other agencies had not remitted to the Federation Account what contributed to the deficit in the year’s budget./
Other factors that led to the deficit included modest oil benchmarking and the proliferation of illegal accounts held by the federal government.