The Nigerian government through the Director General of Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze has revealed that in no distant time, the budget of revenue generating agencies in Nigeria such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other agencies will soon be part of the national budget rather than sending different budgets to the National Assembly by these agencies.
Mr.Ben Akabueze made this statement in Abuja at a town hall meeting with Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of Government Owned Enterprises (GOE). According to him, this action was necessitated by the agencies’ refusal to promptly remit their revenue to the federation account.
He further stated that despite the heavy investment of the government which is to the tune of N40 trillion, the agencies are remitting less than one percent of their revenue. So the government has declared an emergency on revenue generation by the different agencies.
Based on this development the government has called a meeting with the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), the Controller General of Customs,The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mines and Steel Development, the Central Bank, the Department of Petroleum Resources and other agencies.
Mr.Ben Akabueze however stated that even if the budget of the agencies are included in the national budget, the agencies will still be given opportunity to appear before the National agency to defend their own budget included in the national budget.
The habit of not making remittances to the federation account by Government Owned Enterprises (GOE) is an aberration and the Federation government is greatly displeased by the non-remittances by these agencies and wish to put a stop to it. For example the PPPRA has unremitted amount to the tune of N1.34trillion.
To curbs these challenges faced by the government in collecting revenues from the different Government Owned Enterprises (GOE) the Federal Government for all agencies to make use of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in all their financial transactions and remittance of operating surplus will be remitted quarterly as against the annual remittances practiced before now. And audit of GOEs will be carried out with four months after the end of a financial year.
