The was anger among members of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance on Tuesday when the office of the Accountant General of the Federation failed for the second day to provide records of revenue remittances by agencies of government to the committee looking into the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
The AGF office said it finds it difficult to trust the remita because it can be generated without the money being paid into the system.
The House Committee was particularly disappointed with the discrepancies noticed in the revenue remittances of the National oil Spill Detection and Response Agency and Energy Commission of Nigeria.
While NOSDRA said it remitted over about N2.4 billion to the CRF in 2021, the records of the AGF states that the agency remitted about N1.6 billion, while ascribing about N27.82 million to Energy Commission of Nigeria which said they remitted N13.6 million to the CRF.
Deputy Director, Revenue and Investment in the Accountant General’s office, Ambrose Amayi, said they often find it difficult to identify which agency make a particular payment because the records they receive from the Central Bank often come as a bulk document without specification.
“When we have a copy of Central Bank statement, we find it difficult sometimes to identify agencies that have made payment. That is why we told them to come and identify themselves each time they make payment so that we can issue them receipt. The statement from CBN is not too explicit. We have codes for the agencies, but the CBN is not using the code.
“These monies are paid to CBN using the TSA subhead. When the money is coming, it come in form of bulk head. What we then do is to go to the remita platform, use the debit advice or RRR that is generated and try and unbundle all the agencies that have paid so that we can match them. But that takes a bit of time.
“The problem we have is that the narration from CBN is usually poor and so, we had to rely on remita. What the agencies are supposed to do is to apply to us that they have made payment. We have complained to CBN severally”.
Collaborating his colleague’s statement, Deputy Director, Sub-Treasury who identified himself simply as Dangina said: “Sometimes, when these agencies pay their money to TSA subhead domicile in the CBN, we issue receipt when they apply. They let us know that they have paid so that we can issue them receipt.
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“When we look at our advances from the CBN, we see bulk statement and we don’t know which agency is making payment and so, we usually have to wait. That is why there is always a delay because we have to go to the remita platform to find out which agency has made payment. We use their evidence to track it, reconcile and issue receipt.
“Unfortunately, some of these remita receipt are not reliable. You can generate an invoice for remita but that remita is actually not there. We always take extra precaution.
Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Saidu Abdullahi, who presided over the committee meeting, said: “This was the same thing that happened yesterday that we had to send the agencies back to you to reconcile records and come back to us. We can’t be going back and forth on the same issue.
“If there is anything that you should have taken back home from the presentation of yesterday is the fact that we should have moved from the issuance of manual receipt. When somebody makes payment, he should be able to print out the receipt.
“I remember that this is the same situation we were last year and yet we have so much money lying unidentified and the next thing you hear is that money is missing in the system. When you can’t track sources of fund, it will easy for the money to leave the system.
“We need to take this job more seriously because that this country is bleeding. Every kobo matters to us at this time. It doesn’t matter how much is generated, but we must ensure that the money gets to where it is supposed to be. We can’t continue to have money in the system that nobody is accounting for.”
