The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) have been given a 21-day ultimatum by the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee to reconcile the N45 billion unremitted operational surplus that was reported between 2007 and 2021.
During the public hearing on government income leaks on Tuesday in Abuja, the committee’s chairman, Representative Bamidele Salam, issued the instruction. The FRC brought the SEC before the committee for failing to reply to its 2022 report, which included a calculated obligation of unremitted monies against the SEC of N45.013.
On December 20, 2022, we sent a letter to the SEC notifying them of our estimated obligation for the years 2007 to 2021, which came to N45,013,010,229 alone.
“Up till now, we have not received any response from them, so as far as we are concerned they have accepted the liability and that is what we have recorded against the commission,” Mr Bello Aliyu, a representative of FRC, told the committee.
He added that between the period and now, the SEC had not made any attempt to reconcile the figure as contained in the report.
Aliyu said by law, balance of any operating surplus should be paid into the consolidated revenue fund of the Federal Government in less than one month of the statutory deadline of publishing any corporation account.
Mr Lamido Yuguda, the Director General, of SEC, while reacting to the allegation, however, said that the commission had reconciled its operating surplus with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF).
“I think if the FRC had done a little more work, they would have seen from the OAGF all the efforts that we have made to reconcile the surplus figure from 2007 when FRC came into being,” Yuguda told the committee.
In his comment, the committee chairman said the FRC was empowered by law to ensure that all agencies and government corporations listed in its enabling Act behave responsibly with regard to remittances and management of their revenues.
“I don’t know why SEC is more comfortable with the Accountant General office and I don’t want to insinuate anything, but I want to assure the FRC that from now on, all that will stop.
”We are going to ensure that all agencies make FRC the major body of government that should ensure compliance with the provision of the act,” Salam said.
