The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has continued hearing over the investigation of Revenue Leakages through the Remita platform and Non-compliance substantively with the standard operating procedure and other allied service level agreements 2023.
The Committee Chaired by Representative Bamidele Salam probed the Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC), Nigerian Mainstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), and Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) on 21st February 2024 over alleged Revenue leakages.
In his remark, Nigeria Export Promotion Council, Nonye Ayeni, Executive Director/CEO, “Nigeria Export Promotion Council is the agency that was established to promote the development and diversification of non-oil export.
“We are not a revenue generating agency, we’ve been established to promote Non-oil export.
We generated N378,643,206.47 from 2015 to 2022 with transaction counts of 36,415 and we remitted 100 per cent to CRF, what ever we collect, we remit. Most of the collection is from just minor activities like registration of exporters when they register on our platform, and for now, what we charge them is N33,500”
Giving a breakdown of the revenue generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA in the last seven years he said, “In 2015 we collected N9.2 million; in 2016, N65 million; in 2017, N67.4 million; in 2018, N49.6 million; in 2019, N56.7 million; in 2020, N66.4 million, in 2021, N19 million; and, in 2022, N44.8 million.”
Responding to the committee question on when the council engaged the first and second Auditor mentioned in their financial statements, the Director said “The external Auditor, we engaged them three three years with an opportunity to renew for only once. So if you see a particular Auditor running our account, he will run it for like 6 years. We engaged our first auditor in 2021”
Reacting to the claim of NEPC on the procedure of engaging an external Auditor, Mr. Olu Samuel who represented the Auditor General of the Federation said, “The maximum period is not breakable, is maximum of 5 years and it’s not renewable, just to avoid undue familiarity, that was the basis for it”
The Chairman commented “So it means you engage them for three years and you want to renew, you can only renew for two years so that you don’t exceed the period of 5 years, and if you do anything contrary to that you have wrong foul of the law which is a major infraction for that matter”
The Committee complained over the differences in the NEPC revenue generated claim and Remita submission record on the amount collected on behalf of the federal government.
Also appeared before the Committee over alleged revenue leakages, The Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Executive Director, Mr. Abiodun Adeleke,
“The subject matter of our submission is in respect to the request by this extreme committee with respect to the investigation of revenue leakages through remote platforms and non-compliance substantively with the standard operating procedure and other allied service level agreements.
“We collected and generated the sum of N75,790,543.47 billion revenue for Federal government through remita.”
Giving a breakdown of the revenue generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA from 2015 to 2021, he said, “In 2016 we collected N1.7 billion; in 2017, N6.4 billion; in 2018, N6 billion; in 2019, N9.2 billion; in 2020, N24 billion, and, in 2021, N28 billion.
“We have the following challenges using Remita platform; Charges on failed transactions are not refunded, Reports generated from the Remita platform relating to past records are often incomplete and not the same as what was uploaded originally, and frequent downtime.”
In his presentation, Nigerian Communications Commission, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Dr. Aminu Maida, “We have NCC internal revenue as follows; we have Annual Operating levy, spectrum fees, NNP, Type Approval fees, Licence fees, Sanction fees, Administrative fees, Sales of form, other charges which total N1,037,809,940,342.72 trillion”
Giving a breakdown of the revenue generated for the Federal Government through REMİTA from 2015 to 2021, he said, “In 2015 we collected N92.9 billion; in 2016, N145.4 billion; in 2017, N73.6 billion; in 2018, N171 billion; in 2019, N187.7 billion; in 2020, N94 billion, and, in 2021, N272.8 billion.”
Ruling on the matter, the Chairman ordered that all the agencies that appeared to reconcile their accounts because of the differences in figures between the agencies’ claims and remita claims.
