The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) opened the Pandora’s Box on the activities of some Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
It accused the MDAS of producing two different accounting statements in order to manipulate their operating surplus and losses.
In the last seven years, according to the commission’s Acting Chairman, Mr. Victor Muruako, over N1trn had been lost by the government due to what he termed “non-remittance of operating surpluses alone by scheduled corporations and other agencies.”
He spoke at a one-day sensitisation programme for heads of finance and accounts, human resources, budget officers and other relevant stakeholders in federal MDAS.
Muruako further disclosed that N15.892 trillion came into the Federal Government’s coffers as revenue between 2009 and 2015.
A breakdown of the figure showed that N9.738 trillion came from oil revenue while non-oil sector accounted for N4.647 trillion. About N1.507 trillion was raised as Consolidated Fund, he said.
He lamented that the double standard of accounting, a situation where some MDAs submit different accounting statements to the FRC and the Office of the Accountant-General had slowed down the commission’s activities as it was not able to go beyond N380 billion which it had remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the government.
Muruako pointed out that the slump in the price of oil had compelled the country to address the issues of non-remittance and leakages in government revenue worsened by poor governance, fraud and general low productivity.
“At the core of the efforts to plug revenue leakages is revenue transparency which will increase accountability and reduce opportunities for corruption and potential waste of already decimated revenue,” he said.
The Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HoSF), Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, who fielded questions from journalists after the opening session, said that her office was working hard to block all avenues of revenue leakages and fraud in the financial system of the MDAs.
According to her, the government’s wage bill will further drop in 2017 with the physical verification of all personnel.