House Committee Urges NSITF to Remit N3.8bn to Govt Coffers

Juliet Akoje

The House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on the recovery of N1.2 trillion unclaimed funds has disclosed that the

Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) owes the federal government N3.8 billion.

This was made known by the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Unyime Idem, during its continued investigative hearing yesterday.

Idem said the sum represented the amount which was not remitted to the government by the agency from 2016 to 2018.

According to him, the agency submitted audited financial statements for only this period and the debt figure was arrived at by the committee from the documents it received.

 “These figures are extracted from documents that they submitted before us. I wonder what would happen by the time they fully submit all the documents required by this committee,” Idem said.

He also revealed that the National Business and Technical Examinations Board was yet to remit the sum of N268 million to the tederal government.

He said the sum covered the period from 2015 to 2020.

“Based on the documents they have submitted so far, though they still have a lot of documents to submit, but so far, we have been able to discover infractions to the tune of N268 million.“

This is money that belongs to the Federal Government. We have asked them to let us know when that money would be paid directly into the federal government’s account,” he added.

The Executive Director, Operations, NSITF, Modu Gana and the Registrar of NABTEB, Ifeoma Mercy Isiugo-Abanihe, who both appeared before the committee requested for more time to reconcile their records.

 Idem directed the organisations to provide details of revenue generation, collection and remittances up till date on Friday and appear before the committee next Tuesday.

 He stressed that the sums must be paid back to the government especially against the background of the cash crunch the country is currently facing.