MTEF/FSP: Senate Bars MDAs from Spending IGR

The Chairman, Joint Senate Committee on the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper, Senator Sani Musa, said no federal agency would henceforth be allowed to spend the revenues they generate.

Musa, who is also the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, therefore, directed all revenue-generating agencies in the country to furnish his panel with details of remittances they had so far made this year.

He further directed the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to collate details of the remittances and the list of those that were defaulting.

Musa gave the directive at the ongoing public hearing by a joint committee of the Senate on MTEF chaired by him.

The panel, including the Committees on Appropriations; National Planning and Economic Affairs; and Local and Foreign Debts, are engaging heads of federal ministries, departments and agencies on the  2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy.

Musa said, “The National Assembly is working hard to protect the economy of the country.

“The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, for instance, is a Nigerian entity it must abide by the Nigerian rules, it must abide by the ground norms. When it is due to remit, it must do so.

“No agency of the government should come before us to say they are exempted from remitting revenues to the consolidated revenue funds.”

Musa added, “The Accountant General should take note of the agencies that have yet to remit their revenues to the CRF.

“You should liaise with the committee’s secretariat so that we can find time to reconvene like this to sort out those issues.”

Musa, who was responding to a presentation by the Nigerian Institute of Legal and Advanced Studies and the Nigerian Maritime Academy on delayed remittances to the CRA, insisted that the MDAs should present a breakdown of their revenue collection and remittances from January to date to the committee.

He said MDAs were aware that any action in breach of financial regulations was a breach of the law.

He said agencies must work towards remitting the revenue due to the government upon collection without delay.

He also requested that all receipts of remittances be made available to the committee.

Musa raised issues of disparity of revenue projections and remittances based on presentations of the Nigerian Communication Commission and presentation by Office of Accountant General for the Federation.

He also urged the Accountant General of the Federation to interface with MDAs for reconciliation of remittances made and revenue projections in the 2026-2027 MTEF and FSP.

He also requested detailed breakdown of remittances arising from revenue collected from stamp duties by the MDAs.

Musa said there was a need for proper reconciliation of the remittances in line with the nation’s financial laws and the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mrs Oluwatoyin  Madein, said her office usually engaged the MDAs to reconcile their accounts and remittances made to the government in line with the financial laws.

Also, the Director-General of the Debt Management Office, Mrs Patience Oniha, while responding to a question on a new government loan request, said  Nigeria needed to challenge itself on revenue generation given its projection on debt services.

Among the MDAs that presented their revenue projections for the  2024-2026 MTEF and FSP were the Office of Accountant General of the Federation; Nigeria Maritime Academy; and Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

Others were the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, Development Bank of Nigeria, Debt Management Office, Office, among others.

The Nigerian Communication Commission Joint Matriculation and Examination Board and the Federal Mortgage Bank were asked to appear on another day for a re-presentation of their expenditure and revenue projections.

Earlier, the Accountant General said the ministry project an IGR of N3.1tn

Detailing the ministry’s revenue details in three years, she said, “From the federation account, in 2020 the budgeted revenue was put N7.9tn, and the actual gross revenue was N8tn while net distribution was N7.6tn.

He added, “In 2021 budget was N9.2tn while the actual gross inflow was N9.3tn and the net inflow was N7.7tn.

“In 2022, the budget was N15tn, the actual revenue was N12.2tn, the net distribution was N8.6tn.

“In 2023, the Revenue projection was N13,7tn, as of October, the total revenue inflow was N12.4tn”

“Under the Stamp Duty, the budget for 2020 was N17.3bn while the actual was N119bn.

The Accountant General added, “In 2021, the budgeted amount was N16.8bn, while the generated amount was N33.94bn.

“In the year 2022, the budget stamp duties was N16.8bn while the generated amount was N53.5bn.

“In 2023, the budgeted amount was N44.46bn and the generated amount was N53bn.

“For the IGR in 2020 was N871.3bn, while the actual amount  N532.9bn”

She stated, “In 2021, the budgeted amount was N1.06tn while the generated amount was N1.06tn. In 2022 the budgeted amount was N2.2tn while the amount collected was N1.39tn.

“In 2023, the budget was N2.6tn, while the actual amount was N1.42tn as st September 2023.

“We can only project IGR for 2024 and we put that on 20% markup of the budget of 2023 which is N3.1tn,” she added.