NAFDAC, NERC, NIGCOMSAT, Others Opt Out Of Federal Budget

Following the ongoing investigation by the Senate Committee Finance on Remittances of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and payment of 1% Stamp Duties on all Federal contracts pursuant to reducing yearly budget deficit and getting more revenue to fund budgets, some government agencies have started opting out of funding from the Federal Budget and refunding millions of due revenues to Consolidated Revenue of the Federation (CRF). 

While answering questions from Senator Solomon Adeola (APC, Lagos West) led Finance Committee, the heads of National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration, NAFDAC, NIGCOMSAT and Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, to varying degrees informed that their agencies should be taken out from the Federal budget. 

Professor Moji Adeyeye, the Director-General of NAFDAC, told the Committee that her agency can conveniently exit the Federal budget to the extent of all overheads as well as capital provisions adding that they can actually start the implementation from the 2021 Budget to free funds for other uses and hopefully reduce the size of budget deficit of about N6 trillion. 

Similarly, the Chairman of Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC Mr. James Momoh, also stated that his agency is ready to completely exit the Federal budget while promising to refund accumulated N28million being 1% Stamp Duties on contracts awarded by the agency that were not remitted by contractors within one week. 

The NIGCOMSAT Limited, another agency of the Federal Government, also told the Committee that they are ready to exit the Federal budget with regards to overheads. 

Its Director General Dr, Abimbola Alale, told the Committee that the agency will seek partners to inject capital into the agency programmes to yield revenue for the Government as lack of capital in sufficient size has been the major impediment of the agency. 

All the three agencies and ICPC,x which appeared before the Committee were asked to reconcile their IGR and 1% Stamp Duty accounts for remittance running into billions of Naira with Fiscal Responsibility Commission, FRC and report back with the reconciliation for the Committee to determine if any remittance is still outstanding to the CRF. 

Senator Adeola, the Chairman of the Committee thanked the DG of NAFDAC and heads of other agencies for their magnanimity in proposing to exit the Federal budget saying that the Federal Government can no longer fund agencies that generate huge revenues that are spent by the agencies and still continue to fund them on overheads, capital and salaries every year. 

“I want to commend the NAFDAC DG in particular for willingly opting out of the Federal budget beginning from this year’s budget. No doubt such gesture will go a long way in reducing our yearly deficits and reduce our incessant borrowing to fund government activities” he stated. 

Before today’s hearing some agencies of Government including National Office of Technology Acquisition, NOTAP and Nigeria Electricity Management Service Agency, NEMSA, among others have indicated willingness to exit the Federal budget in part or whole following the oversight activities of the Committee with over N50 millions already detected and paid back to Government on 1% Stamp Duty alone by some of the over 400 revenue generating agencies under investigation.