In
spite of clear fiscal regulatory provisions that all federal government
Ministries, Departments and Agencies
(MDAs) must return their annual operating surplus to the treasury, the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)
failed to remit a combined N28.27 billion of such surplus funds.
The
Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC)
disclosed this while meeting officials of the two agencies in Abuja, yesterday
and insisted that the regulation be complied with.
According
to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), it said the breaches were made in 2007 and
2008 by SEC which failed to remit N10.34bn in 2007 and N11.61bn in 2008,
amounting to N21. 95 billion.
NPA
had less figures of N3.79 billion and N2.53bn in 2007 and 2008, totalling about
N6.2 bn.
“For
year 2007, 80 per cent of SEC operating surplus was supposed to
be
N11,152,535,000 rather than N808,736,586,40 which SEC had earlier remitted to
the federal government as 80 per cent of its operating cash surplus. SEC has
therefore been unduly withholding the balance of N10, 343,798, 413.60 due to
the federal government.
“SEC’s
2008 audited financial report indicated an excess of income over expenditure of
N14, 506,368,610. Eighty per cent of this sum is due the federal government and
should thus have been remitted into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the
federal government before the end of April 2009.
“In
spite of all the reminders that this commission has sent SEC, there is no
indication that SEC has made this due remittance after these years,” the
commission said, in a memo to capital market regulator.
The
commission added that SEC had equally failed to forward its audited account to
it in spite of several requests, an indication that the unremitted figure could
be higher it the trend was maintained between 2009 and 2013.
“In
spite of this commission’s various requests, SEC has not availed the FRC of its
three-year estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2010 – 2012, 2012 – 2014
and 2013 – 2015. SEC has failed to forward to the FRC its approved annual
budgets for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, it said.
Officials
of the FRC said the problem of failure to remit operating surplus by MDAs would
be addressed head-on.
Thisday
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