The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Revenues Matters, Mr. Zacchaeus Adedeji, has called on all Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure timeous remittance of all revenues due to the FGN to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
Adedeji said in line with his mandate to bring sanity and improvement to the revenue architecture of the Federal Government of Nigeria, he had been taking measures to secure the FG’s basic revenue framework.
The recently appointed Special Adviser (SA) to Mr President made the remarks at an unscheduled visit to the Executive Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), Victor Muruako at the weekend.
The SA apprised the Executive Chairman of FRC of the determination of the President Tinubu-led Administration to ensure that all revenues of the FGN, under various subheads, are properly articulated and timeously remitted into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the FGN.
He warned MDAs that it was no longer business as usual on generation and remittance of IGR, adding that agencies that have the capacity to generate more funds should contribute to government coffers.
He also harped on the need for inter-agency co-operation amongst all Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs), to ensure optimum result.
The Executive Chairman of FRC, Victor Muruako used the occasion to congratulate Mr. Adedeji on his appointment and assure him of the full co-operation and maximum efforts of the staff and Management of FRC.
Muruako informed the visiting Special Adviser that FRC has long developed a culture of not letting any revenue due to the FG slip through the cracks.
He said the president’s effort to check the level of irregularities in the system and sanitise the management of the nation’s resources, therefore, deserves commendation.
He however stressed that issuing the directive to the various ministries, agencies, and departments (MDAs) should be seen as just a first step.
“It is imperative for the president to go further by mustering the political will to enforce it because similar directives issued in the past to MDAs to close all their accounts with commercial banks and deposit their monies with the CBN, were largely ignored most of the time.
“The FRC had on several occasions frowned at how MDAs default and practically keep money away from the federal government’s reach.
“Several revenue-generating agencies also dissipate funds on excessive overhead expenditure and extra-budgetary expenditure thereby reducing their operating surplus,” he said.
