Federal agencies diverting revenues for trivialities – Reps

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Thursday said there had been a consistent failure to adhere to the revenue remittance agreements to which many of the federal revenue-generating agencies have committed.

He said: “We have credible reports that these desperately needed funds have in many cases, been diverted to finance unnecessary trivialities. At the same time, the government is left scrambling for alternative sources to fund priority projects. We cannot afford this dynamic, and we’ll not tolerate it any more”.

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Gbajabiamila spoke in Abuja at a five-day interactive session with government revenue-generating agencies and other stakeholders, organised to discuss the 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Fiscal Strategy Paper.

He noted that the legislature remained the keeper of the public purse with broad constitutional authority to act on behalf of the Nigerian people to ensure that the nation’s collective resources were efficiently administered in service of the public good.

“Let no one be in doubt, the House of Representatives will not hesitate to act on our constitutional authority notwithstanding whatever objections may arise,” the speaker warned.

Chairman, House Committee on Finance, James Abiodun Faleke, warned revenue-generating agencies against spending more than what was approved from their generated revenue.

He said the Federal Inland Revenue Service must device all strategies and technology to focus more on non-oil revenue as “the country is blessed with huge revenue sources apart from oil.”