The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Departments and Agencies (MDAs)

  • N450bn unremitted revenue: FG recovers additional N793 million from MDAs

    N450bn unremitted revenue: FG recovers additional N793 million from MDAs

    An additional N793 million unremitted operating surpluses from three revenue generating agencies has been recovered by the Federal Government from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) accused of short-changing the government.

    This was announced in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja by the Director of Information, Federal Ministry of Finance, Salisu Dambatta.

    According to the statement, this is thanks to the Recovery Committee set up two weeks ago by the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun.

    The Committee was tasked to recover unremitted N450 billion operating surpluses from Federal revenue-generating Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

    The surpluses are legally classified as a Federal Treasury Revenue.

    The Committee immediately swung into action by issuing demand notices to 17 of the initial 33 affected Agencies, out of which it met with 10.

    They included the National Shippers Council, Nigeria Export Promotion Council, National Health Insurance Scheme, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigeria Communication Commission.

    The rest were Nigeria Postal Service, National Pension Commission, Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company, Raw Materials Research and Development Council and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria.

    According to the statement, the recoveries, totalling N793 million, were made from the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), N278 million; Nigeria Shippers Council, N407 million and Nigeria Export Promotion Council, N108 million.

    “So far, the cumulative total amount recovered is N1.44 billion, given the earlier recovery of N650 million from the Nigeria Shippers Council.

    “Several other agencies were in the process of submitting repayment plan for approval.

    Meanwhile, four agencies that were unable to make it to the meeting due to short notice have been rescheduled to appear before the Recovery Committee.

    “They are the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Pensions Commission (PENCOM), Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA),” it stated.

    The Minister of Finance announced recently that many revenue generating Federal Government agencies have not remitted the operating surpluses from the revenues they generated totalling N450 billion from 2010 to date.

    The agencies are required to pay the operating surpluses to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federal Government not later than one month following the statutory deadline for publishing each
    corporation’s account as provided in the Fiscal
    Responsibility Commission Act 2007.

  • Reps to probe Buhari’s appointments

    Reps to probe Buhari’s appointments

    The House of Representatives is set to investigate all appointments into Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) since the inception of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    The lawmakers said the investigation became necessary due to public outcry over apparent lopsidedness and imbalance in recent appointments and sharing of posts into public offices by the federal government and some of its agencies in favour of certain zones.

    Consequently, House Committee on Federal Character has been mandated to carry out a comprehensive overview of all Federal government appointments/recruitments during this dispensation.

    The Committee that was given four weeks to carry out the assignment would ascertain level of compliance or otherwise of the MDAs with Section 14 (3) of the Constitution.

    The decision of the lawmakers followed the adoption of a motion by Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers), who noted that the failure of the Federal government to comply with the federal character principles in appointments/recruitments into public offices and government agencies has negatively affected the country.

    “The concern and commentaries in the recent time about an apparent lopsidedness and imbalance in appointments and sharing of posts into public offices by the federal government and some of its agencies in favour of certain zones.

    “This negates Section14 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended that ‘The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice’.

    “Section 14 (3) of the Constitution also made it clear  that ‘The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies’.

    “It was towards the realisation of the above objectives that the Federal Character Commission (FCC) was established under the Federal Character Commission (Establishment, etc) Act, 2004, with responsibility to promote, monitor and enforce compliance with the principles of the proportional sharing of all bureaucratic, economic and political posts at all levels of government.

    “It is however worrisome that the Federal Government and the Federal Character Commission (FCC) have not lived up to the above mandate as there exists numerous cases of lopsidedness and imbalance in appointments and sharing of posts/offices, including the recent recruitments by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) appointments into boards and parastatals and more recently the nomination of Ambassadors, to mention but a few.

    “Unless urgent and positive steps are taken to check the prevailing imbalance in the appointments and sharing of Federal Government posts, people would continue to be discontented and despondent, and this could lead to dis-unity and disloyalty, and heighten ethnic agitations and national insecurity”.

    Also in its resolution, the House urged the Federal Government to comply with the Federal Character Principles in Section 14 (3) of the Constitution in all appointments/recruitments into public offices in the country.

    The motion was unanimously adopted when it was put to voice vote by the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara.

     

  • FEC tasks MDAs on 2017 digital broadcasting deadline

    FEC tasks MDAs on 2017 digital broadcasting deadline

    The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday directed relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to collaborate effectively to ensure Nigeria meets the June 2017 global deadline for migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.

    They are expected ‎to follow up on the success and ensure that Nigeria is not left out of worldwide digital broadcasting by June next year.

    Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said that the issue was the only discussion during the meeting.

    According to him, the migration in line with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will enable Nigerians continue to receive television signals after the deadline.

    He said that the pilot scheme for the migration, which was ‎ carried out in Jos, Plateau State in April using special set-up boxes to provide free digital signals of 15 broadcast stations, has been successful.

    He also explained that the funds for the project about N34 billion are available and contracts have been awarded for the supply of the digital set-up boxes at affordable prices to Nigerians.

    The Minister explained that the new digital migration policy‎ entails that signal distributors will thenceforth be solely responsible for sending out broadcast signals to the public consumers while broadcast content will be the responsibility of station owners.

    He said: “The main highlights of today’s council meeting are the swearing in of the four special advisers and permanent secretary for foreign affairs after which only one single council memo was considered and that council memo was a note in respect of an update from my ministry in the process of migrating from analogue to digital broadcasting, as you are aware the ITU gave a deadline to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting June 2017.

    “Already the pilot scheme in Jos which was successfully deployed at the end of April is working very well and today those who are in possession of our set up boxes can view 15 channels with clarity in Jos.

    “And the highlights of today’s council meeting is that council reaffirmed its support for us to meet the deadline of 2017 June and directed that the relevant ministries work together to achieve these deadline.

    Asked why FEC deliberated on only the issue while there are hunger and hardship in the land, he said: “Yes Nigeria might be going through a very difficult time it doesn’t mean that we are going to be cut off from the rest of the world. 20 years ago Ethiopia had a famine that ravaged the whole country they have risen from the ashes of that famine to become one of the strongest economies of the world.

    “The fact that we are facing temporary problems does not mean that we are not going to be at pace with technology development all over the world. This is a global issue; it simply means that if we do not move from analogue to digital broadcasting we may not be able to even receive signals on your television.” He said

    Apart from the government assisting to subsidize in getting the boxes, he said that the digital migration is going to create jobs.

    He said: “Look at the opportunities it offers our young men who are very talented to provide content to television stations. So it’s going to impact very largely on the broadcast industry, even piracy which has been a menace to us today, with digitalisation it means that musicians and film makers can release their films or records direct on digital broadcast such as video on demand and we are now going to cut off the entire pirate network which has been a bane to our creative industry.

    “If we look at the advantages of digitalisation in terms of changing the entire economy of providing more jobs for the people, even the 13 manufacturers of set up box who have been licensed, two of them already are producing are also going to employ but I think that the fact that we have a temporary setback does not mean we are going to be cut off from the entire world,” He stated.