Two Trillion Naira is Missing
By
Monday, August 11, 2008
John Owan Enoh, Chairman, House of Representatives Committees on finance is currently probing the finance of the federal government. He spoke to Newswatch recently on the committee’s findings so far. Excerpts
Newswatch: Your committee is investigating non remittance of monies by the various government agencies into the coffers of the federal government. You have extended invitation to many of these agencies. Some have appeared, some are yet to appear. From those who have appeared so far, what is your impression about the journey so far?
Enoh: Ours is like a probe into the entire government. Let’s take this example. The probe of power projects was limited to the power sector only, that of agriculture is limited to the agriculture sector, that of NNPC is also specific on the NNPC. But ours is on the whole government, so it is not too easy. So the only way out maybe is to use the sampling method. However, we have had some parastatsals come before us and we are discovering a trend. That trend linking to the main mandate the committee got from the House that can give us enough grounds, that can enable us to now say we are making progress. We are trying to see how we can divide these hearing into some stages. The first stage is the one you witness now, the hearings, the second will be convening a national revenue summit. Based on the things we are finding, based on the issues we are generating, we believe that we should widen up a little more, invite people and let’s talk. This, in addition to the public hearings will enable us arrive at what to do to get to the next stage of report writing for presentation to the plenary.
Newswatch: What is the main focus of the investigations?
Enoh: The focus is in terms of the revelations that have come. The motion that gave rise to this investigative hearing was that the agencies of government were generating revenue and not remitting to government, and that this was against the spirit of the constitution particulary section 162. So in the course of the hearing when an agency appears, of course, there will be some startling facts that will emerge. For me as a committee chairman, the more we discover a few of the things that we are coming across, the more we believe that we are meeting our target. And we are not losing sight of our focus. If you look at the structure of the budget for example, when the budget comes, we look at the revenue earnings of the budget which is the main focus of our committee. Most of the revenue accruing to the country comes from two areas, the oil and the non oil. In terms of the non oil, you are looking at what the customs will bring, what the FIRS will bring. Then there is also certain proportion which is regarded as the federal government independent revenue. That one, what customs, FIRS bring and what we get from the oil, all get to the federation account and is shared to the three tiers of government. Federal government independent revenue is what is shared and owned by the federal government strictly. It goes into the federal budget. That is the aspect really that has been suffering. And it is this aspect that this investigative hearing is targeted at. We have continued to treat that aspect of revenue as if it is no revenue. Meanwhile, we have countries that depend 100 percent on this aspect of the revenue for their survival. That is the harm oil has caused this country. Whatever revenue agencies of the country generate, it is not treated as government revenue which should be paid into the federal government treasury in the past. So this is the spirit of the investigative hearing and this is exactly what we want to achieve. Agents and prastatals are not private estates whereby they will generate revenue and spend at will. They are owned by government. And every kobo, especially for those agencies of government that are 100 percent provided for by the budget, must be accounted for.
Newswatch: Where you come across agencies that flouted the law, what will happen?
Enoh: It means they have flouted a law. But so far we have done some categorization of agencies. Those that have laws that authorise them to generate revenue and spend same. In spite of the fact that it is against the spirit of the constitution we have categorised them as such because they have the law. If need be to amend such laws, we will do so later as we make our findings known. We have also some agencies without such statutory financial provisions, yet they have gone ahead to generate monies and spend same. In others, we have agencies without operating laws at all. We will make our recommendations to the plenary.
Newswatch: In the process of the ongoing exercise, which bodies or agencies have gone foul of the law?
Enoh: One of these is the Foreign Affairs. You may have heard about talks in certain quarters to the effect that foreign missions are the worst culprits in terms of remittances of revenue they generate. And you can look at the revenue they make in terms of visa application fees. We came face to face with the fact last week. That within the period covered by the investigative hearing, that is between 2003 to march 2008, foreign service, that is the ministry and the foreign missions generated revenue close to about 12 billion naira. Less than 1.5 billion of that amount has found its way into the federal government treasury. More than 10 billion of that money cannot be accounted for. Without prejudice, some one called me a few days to draw my attention to the fact that the period under review was the worst period for our foreign missions. The foreign missions had no funding, they couldn’t pay very basic bills. Another example is NIPOST. The expenditure of NIPOST is authorised by the board, and where there is no board, by the minister. That shouldn’t be the case. it should be authorized by the national assembly through the budget. There is a whole lot of difference between a budget that has been approved by a board, a minister or by a standing committee and that done by the National Assembly. This is because the degree of scrutiny that is followed by these bodies resulting to approval is quite different from that by the legislature. So we are hoping that it is also possible we will begin to do thing a little bit more appropriately. The challenges are not just of the agencies alone. It is also the challenge of our budget system. As we insist on the kind of things we want to insist over remittances of revenue generated, we must also be prepare to make our budget system to work. We must have a budget system that is workable. We must have a budget system that is prepared as from the first day of January each year is ready to release budgetary allocations to agencies of government.
Newswatch: It appears there are parallel investigations going on at the National Assembly. Both the House and the Senate are involved in this season of probes.
Enoh: Unless you give me an example, I cant remember both chambers doing same thing. I do know that the House thought of an investigation into the Transport sector. But once the senate began investigation into that area, the idea was dropped at the House.
Newswatch: That’s exactly what we want to find out. Does it mean that once the House has done an investigation into a certain sector, the senate will not go into it again?
Enoh: Well, it is actually a matter of choice. But by the nature of the time of the legislature, we have at the national level, a matter becomes a law only when there is concurrence on the matter. A resolution you want to have that binding effect that is of that serious nature, it is up to the House or the senate to seek concurrence by the other chamber. I do agree that there are some motions that we do just pass and move on. But by that time you actually want to move a step further to enforce a motion, then you have to seek concurrence.
Newswatch: What is happening with the energy probe? Should Nigerians expect something positive from the ongoing investigation?
Enoh: I don’t know if that is correct. Even if anything is going on with the probe at all, I don’t think it is enough to make the type of generalization you are making. It is rather preferable that to take every investigation on its own.
Newswatch: At what point will the law enforcement agencies be brought in if in the course of the investigations it is found out that a crime has been committed?
Enoh: This is dependent on the mandate and core focus of the investigation. Unfortunately due to how the power probe, went the expectation of the Nigerian public now is that before an investigation can make meaning, somebody must be culpable, someone must be indicted, arrested etc. But it is not every time such a thing will take place. The House has more than three investigative hearings in progress. Perhaps, in the power probe or in the NNPC probe, there maybe the need to invite law enforcement agencies for one reason or the other. I have maintained cautions with the work that my committee is doing so as not to get the public to a point of beginning to expect that there are some people we will invite the law enforcement agents to arrest.
Newswatch: You have done about 50 percent evaluation of the submissions made to your committee, what are your findings so far?
Enoh: About 50 percent evaluations of the submissions my committee has received about revenue generated from 2003 to march 2008, and this evaluation excludes the submissions and evaluations of the big ones, NNPC, FIRS, Customs, and I emphasis on this three because our whole idea about revenue that forms our national budget comes from this three. The ones I am talking about here are the minor areas of revenue generation that sometimes we don’t even talk about. About 3.5 trillion naira had actually accrued to this other agencies within the period covered in the terms of reference of the investigative hearing. Less than 1.5 trillion has actually found its way into the federal government account out of the 3.5 trillion. Therefore, it means about 2 trillion has been spent underground. Assuming half of the amount was put in the government coffers to assist budgeting, you can imagine how much better we may have done as a country in the national budget.
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