The Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze, has hinted of plans by the Federal Government to capture yearly budgets of Government-Owned Enterprises (GOEs) in the federal budget as part of its efforts to streamline the fiscal system.
The proposed plan, if consummated, will stop the current practice of sending separate budgets to the National Assembly for the various entities.
Some of the agencies that will be directly affected by the planned fiscal measure are the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)
Akabueze, while speaking at a town hall meeting with the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of (GOEs) in Abuja, said that government was also determined to ensure prompt remittance of revenues by the revenue generation agencies and stop their current attitude of delaying, amongst others, the remittance of their operating surpluses to the Federation Account.
The budget expert noted that despite investing about N40 trillion in GOEs by government, they continued to achieve less than one percent return on actual performance, saying this has compelled the government to declare a state of emergency on revenue generation in the country.
The DG said: “It is envisaged in both in Executive Order 2 (EO2) and 2019 MTEF that is why we have gathered here today to basically elaborate on the provisions of these reference documents and to create a forum for interaction and if there is valid feedback for us to take back to the presidency on the subject to do so.
“Later today (yesterday) at 4pm in the office of chief of staff we will be meeting with the heads of the agencies on whose shoulders even the bigger burden on revenue generation rests. We will be meeting with the Chairman of FIRS, CG of Customs, the GMD of NNPC, Mines and Steel Development, the Central Bank and Department of Petroleum Resources”, Akabueze added.
He explained further that when the agencies’ budgets are captured in the national budget, they would still have to defend their budget proposals at the National Assembly, adding that the practice of sending separate budgets to the National Assembly “is an aberration”.
According to him, government is not pleased that many GOEs are owing the Federation Account over N2.7 trillion as unremitted operating surpluses.
Akabueze listed some of the initiatives being undertaken by the government to address the revenue problem as the deployment of new/improved technology on revenue collection; upward review of tariffs and tax rates where appropriate; stronger enforcement action against tax defaulters and tighter performance management framework for GOEs.
He explained that as part of the state of emergency to be declared on revenue generation, government would make it mandatory for all GOEs to use the Treasury Single Account (TSA) for all financial transactions and quarterly remittance of interim operating surplus by the GOEs as against the current yearly remittances.
In addition, government will ensure that the accounts of GOEs shall henceforth be audited within four months after the end of each financial year; while the computation of their operating surpluses shall be reviewed to allow the deduction from the agencies’ revenues of only operational expenses, wholly, reasonably and necessarily incurred in its operations.
