The Senate on Monday in Abuja expressed unhappiness over low revenues reported in 2024 by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and some government-owned enterprises (GOEs) to the Federation Account.
It said that it was worried about the widening disparity between the substantial revenue accruals to the MDAs and their consistently low remittances to the federation account.
The Chairman, Joint Finance Committee of Senate and House of Representatives, Senator Sani Musa, stated this in Abuja on Monday, at an interactive session on the MDAs’ revenue projections for 2025.
MDAs at the meeting included Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
Others were Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) and Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC).
“This trend undermines the government’s capacity to fund critical infrastructure and social services, calling to question issues of inefficiency, mismanagement and possible revenue leakages,” he said.
According to him, his committee’s mandate is to ensure transparency, accountability and efficiency in the financial operations of the agencies.
The senator said that the committee would continue to scrutinise the MDAs’ revenue projections, performance and adherence to statutory remittance obligations.
This, he said, was to identify systematic doubts and recommend actionable results to reverse the troubling patterns.
Sani sought the cooperation and understanding of all stakeholders at the interactive session, saying that it was imperative that accurate data, comprehensive records and open data were presented for the benefit of Nigerians.
“Let us approach these tasks with a shared commitment to building a stronger, more accountable fiscal framework for Nigeria.
“I call on all of us to please be very open about all those areas that we know, even if they are not presented to us,” he said.
