The House of Representatives may soon investigate stakeholders in the financial sector of Nigerian economy over alleged loss of $30 billion due to annual leakages in revenues.
According to the lawmakers, this arises from tax evasion, malpractices, mis-use and diversion of foreign exchange allocations by companies and other entities.
This followed a resolution sequel to a motion of urgent public importance moved by Hon. James Falake (APC) at the plenary on Thursday.
The House said it will also investigate the disbursement of foreign exchange by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other agencies to determine the exact amount that may have been lost by the government in the process.
In his lead debate, Falake said that low performance of the Nigerian economy at this critical time necessitated him to move the motion.
“The House is aware that in the past years, Nigeria has not been able to fund capital aspect of its Appropriation year in, year out, for lack of funds due to low remittances of revenues by revenue generating agencies, low payment of taxes by private companies and diversion of expected revenue by corporate organisations,” he said.
Falake said the crude oil price bench mark in 2020 Appropriation Act was put at $57 dollar per barrel but the price of crude oil in the international market has dropped to $47 dollars per barrel, indicating that the major source of revenue towards funding the 2020 Appropriation Act was already in the negative.
“There was the urgent need to rescue the country from over $30billion dollars annual revenue leakages arising from tax evasion, malpractices, mis-use and diversion of foreign exchange allocations by companies and other entities,” he added.
Adopting the motion, the House gave the Committee 12 weeks to conclude the assignment and report back to it for further legislative action.
