The Federal Government has disclosed that it will henceforth sanction any ministry, department and agency (MDA) that fails to prepare and render statements of accounts to the treasury on or before December 31, 2025 in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) 2007 and other fiscal regulations.
The Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Dr Shamseldeen Ogunjimi, in a circular dated December 22, 2025, to the MDAs threatened that any of them that failed to prepare and render its separate (stand-alone) annual financial statements would have its release of funds suspended indefinitely, while a query shall be issued to the director/head of accounts and administration.
The circular, titled ‘Guidelines of Financial Activities for End of the Year 2025’, also mandated all MDAs to ensure that all revenues due to both the Federation Account and Consolidated Revenue Fund/TSA Sub-Recurrent account of the Federal Government were fully collected and accounted for.
Similarly, the AGF directed MDAs authorized to collect and retain 50% of their gross internally generated revenue (IGR) and remit 50% to the TSA Sub-Recurrent account to ensure due diligence in the collection, utilisation, and remittance of their revenue, as provided by the finance circular with reference number FMF/CME/OTHERS/IGR/CFR/21/2023, dated December 28, 2023.
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According to the circular, the report of such collection, utilisation, and remittance must be uploaded into the GIFMIS platform for completeness of accounting records.
On remittance of operating surplus, the circular directed all corporations, agencies, and departments listed on the schedule of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, revised by finance circular with reference number FMF/CME/OTHERS/IGR/CFR/21/2023, dated December 28, 2023, to limit their total budgetary expenditure to 50% of their gross revenue collections and remit 80% of the remaining 50 per cent into the TSA Sub-Recurrent Account as interim/advance payment of operating surplus.
While the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) recently reported that MDAs had remitted over N5 trillion of their operating surpluses between 2007 and 2024, it lamented that the Federal Government had lost over N1.5 trillion from the failure of some MDAs to remit 80% of the operating surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
It would be recalled that the government had persistently stressed the need for MDAs to return any unspent funds in their coffers to the treasury at the end of each fiscal year.
For instance, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, had in January this year warned that if MDAs didn’t comply with the revised cash planning policy, their capital funds could be withheld.
Layer, noticing a rising trend in unretired advances and unspent cash sitting idle in MDAs, in July this year, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) issued new rules, stressing that MDAs must submit full reports on unretired advances yearly and warned that any breach of the directive could mean losing imprest privileges or even sanctions on defaulting MDAs.
