The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee has mandated the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) to reconcile the N45 billion unremitted operating surplus from 2007 to 2021 within 21 days.
During a public hearing on government revenue leakages in Abuja, the Chairman of the committee, Hon. Bamidele Salam issued the ultimatum.
He emphasized that according to the law, the FRC is mandated to ensure responsible behaviour from all agencies and government corporations listed in its enabling Act concerning remittances and revenue management.
- He stated, “I don’t know why SEC is more comfortable with the Accountant General office and I don’t want to insinuate anything, but I want to assure the FRC that from now on, all that will stop.
- “We are going to ensure that all agencies make FRC the major body of government that should ensure compliance with the provision of the act,”
What the FRC is saying
The Fiscal Responsibility Commission brought SEC before the committee for failing to address its 2022 report, which detailed a N45.013 billion liability of unremitted funds against the SEC.
- Mr Bello Aliyu, a representative of FRC speaking to the Reps committee said, “We have written SEC on December 20, 2022 intimating the commission of our computed liability for the period 2007 to 2021 and the said liability amounted to N45.01 billion only.”
- “Up till now, we have not received any response from them, so as far as we are concerned they have accepted the liability and that is what we have recorded against the commission,”
SEC faults FRC
However, the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mr. Lamido Yuguda stated that the commission had reconciled its operating surplus with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) and faulted the FRC for failing to do its job properly.
He said, “I think if the FRC had actually done a little more work, they would have really seen from the OAGF all the efforts that we have made to reconcile the surplus figure from 2007 when FRC came into being,”