Reps C’ttee urges FCCPC to surpass N15bn as revenue target

The House of Representatives Committee on Finance on Monday tasked the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission FCCPC to gear up and shore up its revenue generation drive, declaring that the agency was capable of surpassing a target of N15 billion revenue annually as against the N1.2 billion it remitted to the government coffers last year.

This came just as the Committee dismissed the submission of the Director of Finance Transmission Company of Nigeria TCN Mr Allen Dutse, on the expenditure of N207 billion for office maintenance and other line items expenditure by the agency in 2021.

Deputy Chairman of the House Committee Hon Adlbdullahi Seidu gave these rulings at the ongoing Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper MTEF &FSP interactive session of the committee with the agencies of the Federal Government ahead of the submission of the 2023 National budget

He charged the Chief Executive Officers CEOs of the agencies to bring on board their previous experiences in either private or public sectors in their new roles adding that the expenditures and remittances of Internally Generated Revenue IGR must be guided by the extant provisions of the Finance Act 2021.

On remittance of collected revenues to the Consolidated Revenue Fund CRF of the federal government, he said that the committee was worried that there were so many unapproved spendings going under the drain as repeated line items by the Ministries Departments and Agencies MDAs.

The lawmaker and other committee members also lashed out at some of the invited agencies at the investigative hearing who had failed to render the annual audited accounts to the Fiscal Responsibility Commission FRC in accordance with the provisions of the law.

While grilling the Chief Executive of the FCCPC Mr Babatunde Irukekere who is also Executive Commissioner in the agency, the lawmakers said that the agency could surpass the N15 billion target it set for the 2022 financial year as against the N1.2 billion it remitted to the CRF in the previous financial year.

He recalled that the Committee had earlier queried the outrageous figures in the budget sub-heads of the agency and in their IGR remittances report to the panel noting that the bills on computer purchase and other sub-heads as travel and tours were quite huge.

Responding, the FCCPC boss said that the agency was no longer a revenue generating agency per ser as the National Assembly have altered the agency’s enabling law from 80 to 50 per cent remittance of IGR to the government.

In the same vein, the TCN Director of Finance lamented that the agency was underfunded by the government as it budgeted N130 billion and got N7 billion in 2020 and also budgeted N168 billion but got N6 billion in 2022.

The Committee Chairman and Hon. John Dyegh nonetheless faulted the agency’s submission noting that many of the line items of the budget of the agency were severally repeated by it.

The lawmakers also directed the clerk to the House panel to reinvite the Managing Director of the agency to appear in person and directed the DFA to go and rework the revenue remittances of the agency saying that the submission was not reliable and unacceptable to the Committee

They declared that the Agency lacked proper coordination as expected of an agency of its status.

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