FG Revenue: 9th National Assemby Will End Illegal Diversion

AISHA ABUBAKAR

The 9th National Assembly has warned all Federal Government Revenue Generating Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) engaged in illegal diversion of Federal Government revenues to desist henceforth, as such activities will not be tolerated going forward.

Giving the warning over the weekend after a meeting with Hon. James Faleke, (APC, Ikeja Federal Constituency) the House of Representatives Committee Chairman on Finance, Senator Solomon Adeola (APC, Lagos West), the Chairman of Senate Committee on Finance, said that the era of unauthorised and illegal diversion of revenues generated by MDAs is over as the 9th National Assembly will ensure that the Federal Government gets enough revenue to implement people oriented policies and programmes.

“It has been observed that year in year out, the Federal Government has not been able to meet its targets on independent revenue sources. Findings indicate that a major reason for this shortcoming is the inadequacies of MDAs coupled with their penchant for diversion of revenue on frivolous excuses for expenditure that are mostly recurrent” Senator Solomon Adeola stated.

Senator Adeola, a Fellow of the ICAN, stated that the 9th National Assembly will not tolerate unauthorised expenditures by the Ministry of Finance or agencies of government not backed by law or the relevant Acts of the National Assembly guiding such expenditure, adding that every expenditure must henceforth be in compliance with the Fiscal Responsibility Act and other applicable laws of the land.

“Reports show that over the years, the Federal Government has not been able to surpass 30% of its revenue targets. With this, it is small wonder we always have low level of budget implementation for critical capital projects. We need to reverse this trend and intend to introduce quarterly review of targets so that needed revenue can come to the Federal purse” he posited.

Senator Adeola stated that the flagrant use of Financial Regulations issued by Ministry of Finance and MDAs to direct spending will no longer be tolerated as such is at variance with laws enacted by the National Assembly and the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria.