The joint committee of the Senate on finance, appropriation, national planning and economic affairs and local, foreign debts on Monday expressed displeasure over the inability of the Accountant General of the federation, Dr. Oluwatoyin Madein to give satisfactory details of remittances of revenues and stamp duties.
Consequently, the committee has mandated her to present details of agency by agency revenues and stamps duties to the joint committee.
Indeed, the chairman of finance committee, Senator Sani Musa (APC, Niger East) had earlier threatened the AGF that the joint committee may not approve the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Frame Work (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), citing obvious discripancies in the previous years review.
“How can we know what was projected in the previous years, what is the projection we had for 2023” he asked?
On remittances, Musa said “I think AGF you need to draw attention of MDAs”.
“If Federal Internal Revenue Service (FIRS) collect stamp duty, they transfer to office of AGF”.
The lawmaker therefore demanded for a breakdown of stamp duty collected agency by agency in the country.
Senator Musa bemoaned a situation where Agencies collect revenues yet defer remittances until the following year, saying it is unacceptable.
He demanded to know the penalty that await such agencies from the Accountant General of the federation.
“We are not comfortable with remittances by agencies, your agency is the next after FIRS in terms of knowing state of remittances” Musa added.
