THE Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives has set a 21-day deadline for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) to reconcile the unremitted operating surplus of N45 billion, documented from 2007 to 2021.
The committee chairman, Bamidele Salam, announced its decisions following its findings on the audit report, which highlighted the unaccounted funds during the committee’s public hearing on government revenue leakages.
The committee summoned the SEC after the FRC reported that the SEC had not responded to its 2022 report, which revealed a liability of N45.013 billion for unremitted funds.
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Addressing the committee, Bello Aliyu, an FRC representative, said the FRC wrote to the SEC in December 2022 seeking its reaction to its findings but did not get a response over 15 months later.
“We have written SEC on December 20, 2022, intimating the commission of our computed liability for the period 2007–2021, and the said liability amounted to N45,013,010,229 only.
“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,” he said.
He further stated that from the period till now, the SEC had made no effort to reconcile the figure outlined in the report.
Aliyu noted that, according to the law, any remaining balance of an operating surplus must be transferred to the federal government’s consolidated revenue fund within one month of the statutory deadline.
While reacting to the allegation, the Director General of SEC, Lamido Yuguda, said the commission had reconciled its operating surplus with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF).
“I think if the FRC had actually done a little more work, they would have really seen from the OAGF all the efforts that we have made to reconcile the surplus figure from 2007 when the FRC came into being,” Yuguda told the committee.
On his part, the committee chairman noted that the FRC was empowered by law to ensure that all agencies and government corporations listed in its enabling Act behave responsibly regarding remittances and revenue management.
“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 provisions of the Act,” Salam said.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: [email protected]. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M