Government-owned agencies have allegedly failed to remit the sum of N2 trillion, according to members of the Senate.
The issue was raised by the representative of Lagos West, Adeola Olamilekan, during the appearance of the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, before the Senate Committee on Finance.
There is an ongoing probe into the non-remittance of funds into the coffers of the Federal Government by agencies and ministries from 2014 to 2020.
Speaking on the matter, Olamilekan said, “We discovered that 10 Government-Owned Enterprises which we have identified in the beginning of trying to bring these Government Owned Enterprises and subsequently increasing to about 50 to 60 GOE.
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“The reconciliation done so far by the Office of Accountant General of the Federation is in excess of over a trillion naira going to like N2 trillion thereabout and these monies are still hanging in the hand of these agencies and we have asked office of Accountant General that what are they doing to get the money into the government coffer and we discovered that they are giving them a payment notice without necessarily following up this process.
“We have noticed that the so called 80 percent of operational surplus, many of these agencies proved frivolous expenditure and they have taken advantage of the current system and refuse to remit this amount as and when due.
“We tried to audit the account of these agencies year in year out for the past five years and some of the revealation are scaring. How do we explain that an agency of government that has provision in the budget for Capital, Overhead and Personel in their audited account , they have gross revenue of N500 million and they are asking for N200 million.”
