• Queries JAMB for remitting N4b, collecting N6b from FG
• Lawmakers knock FRSC for not remitting N8b to FG

National Assembly Joint Committee on Finance has established a special panel to probe a shortfall of over N4 trillion in revenue as a result of indiscriminate waivers by agencies of government.

The lawmakers lamented that due to waivers, there was a serious shortfall between what was supposed to be collected as revenue and what was collected.

The lawmakers came to the decision, yesterday, at the joint committee hearing co-chaired by Senator Sani Musa and Rep James Faleke, set up to probe the revenue profiles of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and Government-Owned Enterprises (GOEs) ahead of the 2025 budget.

The hearing was meant to enable the Senate and House of Representatives committees to develop accurate and realistic revenue projections for 2025.

The panel set up to probe the shortfall followed a motion moved by Senator Adamu Aliero.

Moving the motion, Aliero said: “Due to the issue of waiver, there is a serious shortfall between what is supposed to be collected as revenue and what is collected.

“From our record, over N5.9 trillion was supposed to be the consolidated revenue fund of the federation. But we only have N1.9 trillion. We need to set up a special committee that will investigate this serious anomaly.

“We cannot continue to be allowing revenue agencies to be spending money without the National Assembly. If someone is given a waiver, we have to find out who gave that waiver. A shortfall of over N4 trillion is not a small amount. We found out that over N 4.9 trillion has not been remitted. We should set up an investigative committee that would investigate all the money that has not been remitted,” he said.

Co-chairman, Musa, said the committee was aware that a lot of GOEs collect revenues from other sources and they never disclosed them.

“Some of them did even disclose to the budget office. We’ve been able to get all those and we have all done our scrutinisation and we believe that GOEs and heads of departments that are here will be able to open up to give us more details of how these revenues are sourced. We have also looked at their expenditures. You can imagine an agency collecting revenue whereby it is expected that sales is self-funded.”

The panel threatened to stop the Federal Government’s grant to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board in the 2025 budget proposal.

The committee queried the presentation by the JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, that the agency remitted N4 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, while it got a grant of N6 billion from the Federal Government.

The committee queried why an agency that funds itself should be getting allocations from the Federal Government.

JAMB was also queried for other issues including allocating the sum of N1.1 billion for refreshments and meals in the 2025 budget proposal.

Oloyede attempted to make more clarification but was directed to come back in three days with a more comprehensive presentation.

The committee also queried the Federal Road Safety Corps for not remitting the sum of N8 billion it generated in 2024.

This followed the presentation by the Deputy Corps Marshal, representing the Corps Marshal, Shehu Mohammed, who said though they had a target of N10 billion, they generated N13 billion.

But the committee queried the FRSC for remitting only N5 billion of the amount.

Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, said the 2024 budget was the first full-year budget of the present administration.