N793m recovered from three agencies, says Finance ministry

An additional sum of N793 million has been recovered from three Federal Government Agencies by the Recovery Committee set up two weeks ago by the Minister of Finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.

The recoveries totaling 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.

The Minister of Finance has declared that: “we expect greater compliance in the weeks ahead.”

A statement from the ministry of finance on Wednesday signed by Salisu Na’Inna Dambatta, the director Information of the ministry said the Committee was tasked to recover unremitted N450 billion operating surpluses (legally classified as a Federal Treasury Revenue) from Federal revenue-generating Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The Committee, Dambatta said issued “demand notices to 17 of the initial 33 affected Agencies, out of which it met with 10, namely 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.”

So far, the cumulative total amount recovered, the ministry of finance said “is N1.44 billion given the earlier recovery of N650 million from the Nigeria Shippers Council even as several other Agencies were in the process of submitting repayment plan for approval.”

The statement noted that, “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 would be recalled that the Minister of Finance announced at a media conference on December 1 that many revenue generating Federal Government Agencies have not remitted the operating surpluses from the revenues they generated totaling 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 Section 22 (2) of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission Act 2007.