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By Gabriel Okoro, Abuja
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has charged the ad-hoc committee investigating the under remittances of revenue to federation account to correct the ills associated with revenue remittances in the country towards improving the country’s economic fortunes.
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Dogara gave the charge in at the opening of the four day investigative hearing organised by the ad-hoc committee of the House on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to the Speaker, “There should-be no issues of cover up or connivance.
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He said it is disheartening to hear repeated allegations of non-remittances of huge amounts of revenue by Agencies required to generate and manage the country’s revenue at this period, when government is making efforts towards
diversifying the economy in order to reduce the country’s over-reliance on the oil sector.
On his part, chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Mr. James Faleke while noting that the current state of affairs in the country shows a crunch and cash-strapped economy that seems to be crawling at a slow pace out of recession explained that this has occasioned a bizarre situation where state governments can barely pay salaries, with borrowing categorising a large chunk of government spending and overall budgetary expenditure being adversely affected by dwindling revenues.
Faleke said the current system has continuously encouraged unpatriotic Nigerians to device ways of diverting revenue of the country for personal use at the expense of the poor.
He said: “It could be right to assert that given a transparent and accountable revenue remittance system, we would successfully reduce the over dependence on oil as well as the large amount of borrowing evident in our society.”
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“It is our hope that the outcome of this exercise will help in no small measure to reposition the revenue generating system at all levels of government towards adequately achieving their goals and mandate”, he said.
While interrogating agencies and parastatals concerned, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN declared that it does not have records of unremitted monies into the Federation Account.
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CBN’s Director of Banking Services, Dipo Fatokun who was represented by Jack Okituetu, an acting director said “We don’t have any record of under remittances as CBN is simply a government bank.
“We’ve never falsified reports as all the revenue agencies have access to their various accounts and we are not also a revenue collecting agency of government, he added.
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The ad-hoc committee therefore demand for a comprehensive list of all mandates given to the apex bank and also direct other Commissions like Nigeria Communication Commission to provide other necessary details come Thursday to make it a complete process.
diversifying the economy in order to reduce the country’s over-reliance on the oil sector.