Reps quiz Accountant-General over CBN, NNPC operating surpluses

The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee has directed the Accountant General of the Federation, Shamseldeen Ogunjimi, to provide details of the amount of money owed to the Federal Government in the form of unremitted operating surplus and other revenues by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and other agencies.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Bamidele Salam, during an investigative hearing into the audit queries issued by the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation (OAuGF), also sought an explanation on the alleged withdrawal of N15 billion from the account of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), as well as other agencies.

A member of the committee, Hon. Gboyega Isiaka, while raising the issue, stated that non-remittance of revenue has been a major challenge in Nigeria.

He said: “Considering our GDP, you know, I mean, ours is one of the lowest on the continent, at about 16%. Now, I know that business entities are meant to return about 80% of their taxes, and others are between 20 percent and 50 percent.

“From the totality of what we are seeing, there appears to still be some backlog of remittances. Can you give some instances or some figures around this? That is one. Two, even those business entities that are returning, as a member of the economic team, how comfortable are you with the performance of some of those entities given their assets and all of that?

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“Like CBN, SEC, NIMASA and some of those. Because it’s not just enough for us to say 80 percent of their surpluses. What exactly is the surplus they are giving us? These are the asset bases that they have in their hands. So I think it’s important for us to have a look at that, in addition to some of the revenues that they are meant to have paid but have not paid.”

Responding to the question, the Director of Revenue and Investment in the OAGF, Mr Makinde Mogaji, confirmed that the apex bank was allegedly owing the Federal Government N5.3 trillion in unremitted operating surplus.

He said: “Early last year, they are owing the Federal Government in November N5.3 trillion for their operating surplus and, despite all the effort of the PAC, N5.3 trillion CBN, and despite the effort of the PAC to recover the money, they refused to pay… 70% of that money should be paid and behold, CBN refused to pay. That is CBN. And that is just one of our huge sources of revenue. Agencies like FAAN, we have a record of N473 billion paid.”

Responding to the issue of automatic deduction of revenues from MDAs, which sometimes leads to the reversal of alleged over-remittances, the AGF said: “That was an ingenious way of taking in advance what is due to government last year, and that was how we were able to rake in a lot of revenue last year.

“Let me add to that. Because when we initiated that move and were able to rake in a lot of revenue, some of these agencies went behind to seek a reversal. So, we’ve been battling with that issue because some went back to Mr President and said that was too much, this and that. Some got total cancellation. Some got reduced advance.

“So we have been battling with that, and that’s why we were not able to return to the level we had last year. And you have instances also where agencies like NNPC refused totally to cooperate… to the extent that they had to be walked out because of their non-compliance and lack of cooperation. NNPC has agreed to some of those liabilities; some they said they do not agree with, so all of that is still being handled by a post-mortem committee.”

Shedding more light on the issue, the Director of Revenue and Investment, Mr Mogaji, said: “Yes, the auto deduction that was established last year has been working perfectly. Like the AGF said, the auto deduction is an advanced way. It’s a mechanism designed to pick the operating surplus in advance from these agencies, and at the end of the day, they will compute OPS and see whether they have excess or they have been over-deducted. We have some figures here, but they can’t be taken as the final list.”

Rep. Salam observed that UBEC and some other MDAs have complained about how their monies meant for their statutory responsibilities were being deducted and used for other purposes by the OAGF.

He said: “There is an ongoing investigation involving UBEC and other agencies. And in the course of the investigation, UBEC claimed that, for example, there was a shortfall. There was an authority to incur expenditure in November 2025 which was not released by the Accountant General… N16 billion from the Commission’s account. Another N15 billion from the Commission’s account has not been refunded. And we actually wondered why these deductions from the statutory payments of some of these very critical institutions of government.

“Not only UBEC. We had the same thing with NASENI. NASENI, was it N70 billion or more than that? I have different agencies and they complained. So, what is the justification, Accountant General?”

Responding, the Accountant General said: “We have instances where, at a point in time, when we have the need to take monies from some of these agencies to be able to meet critical financial obligations of government. Yes, it’s like borrowing, a loan. We are going to refund it, and we have been refunding those agencies. It’s just to meet those critical obligations.

“Sir, first and foremost, the Accountant General cannot just sit and begin to pick money from the accounts of these agencies. We first analyse, because the directives come from the Honourable Minister. We first analyse how long these funds have remained in the account unutilised. So, if you have this money for six months and the government needs funding.

“So we say, let’s take it and then refund your money when you need it. Like TETFund, for instance, we took over N300 billion and we have refunded the whole amount to them. So, if you come back and tell us that we need this money now, can you give us that money, then we process and give it back to them.”

However, Rep. Salam challenged the OAGF on the alleged deductions and claims of refunds to the MDAs, which he said were not justified because the MDAs have statutory mandates to execute with the funds.

He asked: “So, which ones have you refunded? UBEC is crying, NASENI is crying, NBC too is crying. We have quite a number of them. We have more than six that are under various investigations here and that is their major claim, that they don’t know how to approach this matter. The Accountant General just gets into their accounts so they cannot have the money to use for the primary purpose for which it was meant.

“Like the one in UBEC, you will agree with me that the problems we have today, including banditry and what have you, are also as a result of our neglect of basic education, especially in the northern part of the country. We have about 13.5 million out-of-school children. UBEC is to construct schools, provide infrastructure and instructional materials. They can’t do that because the funds that are statutorily meant for them are being taken for other purposes.”