The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) said it has recovered the sum of N319 billion in unremitted money from Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in the last two years.
The Chairman of the commission, Mr Mohammed Shehu, who disclosed this in a media interview on Saturday, said the Commission had to engage the service of forensic experts to discover the money as some of the MDAs are complicated.
He added that sometimes, the Commission also works with law enforcement agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the MDAs.
- “If there is an MDA or organization that has established liability and has owned up to the liability and they decide not to pay, sometimes we request the services of EFCC and they have been helping,” he said.
Complicated MDAs
Indicating that some of the MDAs try to hide their revenue, Shehu said:
- “Some MDAs are so complicated that sometimes we have to hire forensic experts or teams of consultants to look deeper into their books. Sometimes, they end up discovering huge sums of unremitted money.
- “Within the last two years, we discovered over N319 billion that has been established and it has been remitted to the appropriate account of the federation.”
Blocking revenue leakages
He said the Commission is doing all within its power to block leakages and boost the Federal Government’s revenue generation initiatives.
According to him, one major function of the commission is to monitor the generation and disbursement of revenue from the Federation account.
- “That act of monitoring involves where to get the money from, to check and see whether revenue generating agencies, which are specifically mentioned in the Act, are living up to expectations. The law mandates the commission to have the power to request information from any revenue-generating agency.
- “That means we have the right to go through the books of all government agencies to see the revenue they collected and what they remitted,” he said.
The chairman said that the RMAFC had created committees to oversee revenue-generating agencies.
- “We have committees for customs, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), crude oil, gas, special duties, and solid minerals. These committees are mandated to carry out monitoring activities across Nigeria.
- “For instance, the customs committee usually goes to the customs services and other companies around the south-west, especially, where you have a heavy dose of manufacturing to look into their books. They do this in collaboration with the Nigeria Customs Service” the RMAFC boss said.
