Finance Minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, revealed yesterday that government’s efforts at realising money from revenue-generating agencies to meet expectations of Nigerians were being hampered by “high level corruption” in some agencies, especially the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) which she described as “cohesive croocks hard to break”
The minister also said the government is paying N2 trillion to pay salaries and pensions while debt servicing takes N1.4 trillion, all from the 2016 budget, a situation which made it impossible to reduce the 2017 budget.
Mrs. Adeosun spoke when she hosted the Senate Committee on Finance led by its Chairman, John Enoh at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja, yesterday.
On how revenue generating agencies are frustrating the government, she noted: “non-remittances by the revenue generating agencies is a big issue. We have done a lot of work on it. We are auditing about 31 of the agencies and what we found is very shocking, it’s very very shocking. That’s the only way to describe it.
“So, what we have done is that we have drafted a template with the Accountant-General and the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, we are working together on allowable expenses for agencies.
“For example, is it acceptable for an agency to say, ‘I got N40 billion on behalf of a ministry?’ We believe that it should come through appropriation, you cannot say that you collect money on behalf of your parent ministry. That is how they are circumventing appropriation and I think that really has to be stopped.
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