RMAFC: We Recovered N319bn Unremitted Funds from MDAs in Two Years

Festus Akanbi

The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) at the weekend said its monitoring of the activities of the various ministries, departments, and agencies of government led to the recovery and remittance of the N319 billion into the appropriate account of the federation.

The Chairman of the commission, Mr. Mohammed Shehu, in an interview yesterday said the commission has continued to block leakages and boost the federal government’s revenue generation initiatives.

According to Shehu, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, one major function of the commission is to monitor the generation and disbursement of revenue from the Federation account.

He said that, however, some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are so complicated in their operations that sometimes the RMAFC had to hire forensic experts or teams of consultants to look deeper into their books.

“Sometimes, they end up discovering huge sums of unremitted money.

“Within the last two years, we discovered over N319 billion that has been established and it has been remitted to the appropriate account of the federation.

“Sometimes, we collaborate with law enforcement agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

“If there is an MDA or organisation that has established liability and has owned up to the liability and they decide not to pay, sometimes we request the services of EFCC and they have been helping,” Shehu said.

“That act of monitoring involves where to get the money from, to check and see whether revenue generating agencies, which are specifically mentioned in the Act, are living up to expectations.

“The law mandates the commission to have the power to request information from any revenue-generating agency.

“That means we have the right to go through the books of all government agencies to see the revenue they collected and what they remitted, ” he said.

He said that the RMAFC had created committees to oversee revenue-generating agencies.

“We have committees for customs, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), crude oil, gas, special duties, and solid minerals. These committees are mandated to carry out monitoring activities across Nigeria.

“For instance, the customs committee usually goes to the customs services and other companies around the south-west, especially, where you have a heavy dose of manufacturing to look into their books.

“They do this in collaboration with the Nigeria Customs Service,” the RMAFC boss added.