Federal Government of Nigeria is refocusing attention on its own agencies and strengthening surveillance on their revenue generation systems to ensure enhanced accountability and boost dwindling incomes. This comes amid concerns that quite a number of Federal Government Owned Entities (FGOEs) remits less operating surpluses to the Consolidated Revenue Fund than is required by law and/or Financial Regulations.
Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and national planning, said on Tuesday, that the income generating activities of the FGOEs would now be monitored online real-time and to ensure improved transparency and accountability.
Ahmed was speaking at the orientation workshop for Treasury Directors selected to be involved in revenue operations of the FGOEs, saying the directors were expected to have better understanding of business processes and operations of the FGOEs while driving improved transparency and accountability in revenue reporting by the enterprises.
The deployment of Directors of Revenue to the FGOEs is in compliance with Presidential approval that was conveyed via SGF’s circular reference SGF.50/S.3/C.9/24 dated October 16, 2018, on the approved Revenue Performance Management Framework for Government Owned Enterprises (FGOEs).
At the event organised by the Office of the Accountant-General in collaboration with JK Consulting Company, the minister also said the Treasury Directors would also be expected to look for opportunities and avenues for revenue improvements, which is government’s ultimate goal.
The Directors would deploy Information Technology in the discharge of their duties, and according to the finance minister, the “Integrated Revenue Monitoring System is being put in place to help the monitoring of the revenues of the FGOEs online real-time and to ensure its improved transparency and accountability.”
She noted that Nigeria’s continued reliance on highly volatile oil revenues would mean sustained instability in expenditure caused uncontrollable exogenous global price, and that revenue generation by the Federal Government Owned Entities is an important sector with huge potentials and possible solutions to drop in oil revenue. She cited an IMF survey that showed that the combined revenues from the entities far exceed Federal Government entire budget.
“It is in this light that the deployment of the Treasury Directors is considered expedient to the selected FGOEs as a pilot test in 10 agencies, including the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Department for Petroleum Resources (DPR), Nigerian Communication Commission, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Nigerian Customs Service, Corporate Affairs Commission, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
“It is my considered opinion that the presence of Directors of Revenue at the FGOEs will ensure strict adherence to extant rules and regulations in the areas of compliance to approved budget and due process mechanism in procurement and payments,” she stressed.
Idris Ahmed, Accountant-General of the Federation, said the only solution to addressing the fiscal challenges facing the nation was ensuring diversification from the volatile oil incomes and look inward into the non-oil revenues with special attention on the FGOEs.
According to him, the vision of the initiative is to achieve transparency and accountability of government revenue with special focus on FGOEs, improved revenue performance and ultimately to provide sustainable source of funding for government budget execution.
“At the point we are today, we all need to think outside the box and come up with implementation strategies that will have positive impact in transforming our non-oil revenue sources of financing the budget,” he said.
At the event, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, said the three tiers of government had been witnessing a downward trend in revenue receipt since 2015 and called for action.
He explained that among the decisions taken to boost the revenue base of government was to post Professional Treasury Officers to select FGOEs to among other things, enable the Treasury to have a better understanding of the business processes and operations of the FGOEs.
“This will help in the review of the current systems, policies and procedures in revenue administration and management.
“The policy is a reform initiative aimed at generating more revenue and associated remittance into the government treasury and to also improve the operational performance of all GOEs,” he said.
