The Joint Committee on Finance of the National Assembly on Monday set up a special panel to investigate a revenue shortfall of over N4 trillion due to indiscriminate exemptions by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the federal government.
This came just as the joint committee, co-chaired by Senator Sani Musa and Honorable James Faleke, held a hearing to investigate the revenue profiles of MDAs and Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) ahead of the 2025 budget.
This followed the adoption of a motion introduced by Senator Adamu Aliero to allow the Senate and House of Representatives committees to develop accurate and realistic revenue projections for 2025.
Introducing the motion, Senator Aliero said: “Due to the exemption issue, there is a serious shortfall between what is supposed to be collected as revenue and what is actually collected.
“Based on our record, over N5.9 trillion was supposed to be the consolidated revenue fund of the federation. But we only have 1.9 trillion naira. We need to create a special committee to investigate this serious anomaly.
“We cannot continue to allow tax agencies to spend money without the National Assembly. If someone receives a waiver, we have to find out who granted it. A deficit of over N4 trillion is not a small amount. We discovered that more than N4.9 trillion has not been remitted. “We should create an investigative committee to investigate all the money that has not been remitted.”
For his part, Co-Chairman Senator Musa said the committee was aware that many GOEs collect revenue from other sources and never disclose it.
According to him, “some of them even reported it to the budget office. We have been able to obtain all of them and we have all done our own scrutiny and we believe that the GOEs and the heads of departments that are here will be able to open up to give us more details on how this revenue is obtained. We have also analyzed your expenses. You can imagine an agency that collects revenue through which sales are expected to be self-financing.
“Funds that are supposed to be remitted to the consolidated revenue fund and never are. I think from now on we are going to block that leak and do what is necessary. We will examine the expenses of these GOEs because a GOE will collect 100% of the revenue and in its expenses, it is seen that it is spending around 95% of the revenue that it collected. So this is the way in which we can find a lasting solution to these leaks.”
The legislator stated that the President, when presenting the 2025 appropriations bill to the National Assembly, mentioned the importance of agency heads appearing before the National Assembly to defend their budgets.
He noted that MDAs should not be surprised if they are not given any allocation if they cannot come forward and defend what they have presented to the budget office.
The committee also questioned the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) for not remitting the N8 billion it generated in 2024.
This followed the presentation by the Deputy Marshal of the Corps, representing the Marshal of the Corps, Shehu Mohammed, who said that although they had a target of N10 billion, they generated N13 billion.
But the committee questioned the FRSC for remitting only N5 billion of the amount.
“You had a target of N10 billion but you generated N13 billion but only remitted N5 billion. So you just bring balance. It is necessary to provide this committee with details regarding the unremitted fund,” Senator Sani ordered.
The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, said the 2024 budget was the first full annual budget of the current administration.
He stated that lessons learned from 2024 formed the basis of the assumptions of the 2025 budget, which was designed to generate more revenue for the government and provide solutions for the economy.
He said GOEs must do better and urged all government agencies to fully cooperate with the National Assembly.
Agencies invited included Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Federal Road Safety Corps, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, Nigerian Transport Council , Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Nigerian Customs Service and Corporate Affairs. Commission, Nigerian Communications Commission, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Nigerian Immigration Service, Nigerian Port Electricity Training and Security and Exchange Commission.
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