Extra-constitutional spending

•Relevant supervisory agencies have to be alive to their responsibilities

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari would again express how deeply ingrained the culture of extra-constitutional spending by agencies of government has remained when he admitted to the fact that some federal agencies not only continue to divert government revenues, but also carry on in clear disregard of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy.

Said the president at the swearing in of board members of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC): “As I have noted in recent times, despite our anti-corruption drive, some agencies of government still divert or refuse to fully account for revenue generated. Rather than obey constitutional provisions and extant rules and regulations, such agencies continue as if nothing has changed”.

While suing for the support of ICPC “both for enforcement of anti-corruption laws and submission of policy measures and directives to prevent revenue leakage and diversion”, the president also restated the determination of his administration “to ensure that every agency of government accounts for public revenue generated or expended”.

The president no doubt has Section 80 (1- 4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) in mind. So is the TSA policy under which no MDA is allowed to keep any operational account. The Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 equally mandates any government agency that generates revenue to remit 80 per cent of its operating surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) account.

Sections 21 and 22 of the Act state that government corporations and agencies shall, not later than six months from the commencement of the Act and every three financial years thereafter and not later than the end of the second quarter of every year, cause to be prepared and submitted to the finance minister their schedule estimates of revenue and expenditure for the next three financial years.

Thanks to the operation of TSA, the country has no doubt come a long way from when agencies treated public funds as they pleased, with neither parliamentary oversight nor effective fiscal controls. However, while some progress has been made to enforce the provisions of the law, this is certainly not the first time issues of non-remittances by agencies of government will come up. For instance, only last December, the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation accused the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) of not only under-remitting its revenue, but also illegally swapping its dollar receipts with naira which it then pays into the Federal Government’s coffers.

FAAN, the committee charged, collected N58.7bn as (internally generated revenue (IGR) in the 2018 fiscal year while remitting only N1bn into the federation account. Other agencies reportedly owing operating surplus to the Federation Account include the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), N801.18 billion; Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) N1.34 trillion; Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC)– N30.85 million; Nigeria Shippers Council (NSC)– N11.99 billion and National Examinations Council (NECO)– N16.33 billion. Others are NIMASA– N192.10 billion; and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) N8.81 billion.

We also recall that the July 2018 meeting of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) was stalemated three times over the same issues of under-remittance by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). These agencies, certainly not alone, are only unfortunate to have come under public scrutiny, as indeed there are stories making the rounds of banks collecting revenues on behalf of the government while failing to remit same as at when due.

What the above suggest is that the law and the policy are only as good as those charged with their enforcement make them to be. To the extent that none of the agencies is expected to operate budgets outside of those passed by the parliament, a more effective oversight by the relevant committees of the parliament would seem a necessary first step. This is without prejudice to periodic interventions by the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly and the anti-graft bodies whenever these become necessary.

Only after these would the government justifiably proceed to make public examples of those found to be in clear breaches of the law.