Members of the Federal House Of Representatives on Wednesday reprimanded the managements of Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) for failing to remit multi-billion naira revenues generated to government’s coffers.
They also frowned at the misappropriation of N25bn generated by Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), out of which only N41m was remitted to date.
The lawmakers specifically expressed displeasure with failure of ITF to meet the N22bn revenue target proposed for 2012 fiscal year, out of which only N2bn was realised.
The House on Tuesday read the riot act to heads of various ministries, departments and parastatals over their non-remittance of internally generated revenue (IGR) to the government in line with the provisions of the 1999 constitution.
The House threatened to impose necessary sanctions on defaulting MDAs, and as well amend relevant sections of the Acts establishing all the revenue agencies henceforth.
In line with its resolution, the House directed its Committee on Finance, headed by Abdulmumin Jubrin, to investigate the remittances to government of 60 MDAs that were fully or partially commercialised under the Privatisation and Commercialisation Decree 1992.
During the interactive session with managements of CAC, ITF and FRCN, the aggrieved lawmakers accused the agencies of breaching the extant laws over the past five years by not remitting their internally generated revenues to the Federation Account and Consolidated Revenue Fund provided in the constitution for government revenue.
But in his presentation to the House Committee, Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Prof. Longmas Wampuk explained that the agency has the mandate of the Federal Government to provide and promote acquisition of skills in order to provide for the manpower needs of the country.
The ITF boss stated the agency had an outstanding N13bn meant for the payment of students under the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) — a tertiary institution-based training programe meant to aid students’ acquisition of practical and technical skills needed in industries.
He disclosed that only the annual Federal Government subventions and the 1 per cent contribution of employers of labour are the only revenue sources open to the agency, stressing that the ITF is not a revenue-generating agency of government.
“In our law, all the monies we collect are not our own; our law provides that we remit 60 per cent and later after some amendments to the Act, 50 per cent of our unutilised funds,” he said in defence.
The lawmakers, still unconvinced, told heads of the agencies that their revenue projections do no justify their huge budgetary proposals.
“Part of the reasons why we scheduled this meeting with government agencies is that any agency that receives subventions form government should totally remit its revenues to the government,” a member of the committee, Terab said.
“Does it make economic sense to project N22bn as revenue target whereas your revenue profile is only N2bn and the next year’s projection only N2.1bn.”
Terab further reprimanded the management of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) for non-compliance with the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, which stipulates mandates government agencies to remit all their revenues to the Federal Government.
He, therefore, the refusal of the agency to pay the N10m it presented as its internal revenue for 2012, and why it paid N13m in 2011, which ought to have been done in 2010.
