By Christiana Ekpa
The National Assembly Joint Committee on Finance has decried the failure of some government revenue generating agencies to honour invitation and appear for 2025 budget defence, even as it issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the agencies to appear or risk withdrawal of funding for 2025 operations.
The Agencies are, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Nigerian Postal Service (NPS) and the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC)
Others are, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)
The Nigerian Copyright Commission, National Insurance Commission, National Pensions Commission, National Space and Research Development Agency and the Nigerian Metrological Agency are also included.
Also included are Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporations, Airspace Management Authority, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas Limited, Transmission Company of Nigeria, Bank of Industry (BIO) Nigerian College of Aviataion Technology, Zaira.
The Chairman, Senate Committee of Finance, Sen. Sani Musa (APC-Niger) said that President Bola Tinubu while presenting the 2025 budget to the National Assembly, mandated all ministers and heads of agencies to appear to defend their respective budgets before assembly with every sense of responsibility.
The senator said that members of the National Assembly had to cut short their Christmas holidays to attend to the national assignment.
“But to our dismay a lot of agencies have refused to honor our invitations to appear before us, for us to scrutinise their performances in 2024 and look at their 2025 projection, if it is justifiable.
“The all these agencies have refused to honour the joint committee’s invitation. So by virtue of the constitutional powers that have been given to the joint committees on finance of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, we are given the chief executives of these agencies 48 hours within which to appear before this joint committee.
“Failure to do that the committee will not hesitate to recommend to the Appropriation Committee to withhold any appropriation to these agencies.
“If these agencies are self funded, we will also request both the Minister of Finance and the Accountant General of the Federation to withhold their funding,” he said.
Also speaking, the Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Rep. James Faleke (APC-Lagos state) said that the essence of the budget defence exercise was to boost revenue generation and cut down on borrowing.
“If these agencies refuse to appear before us, I the needful will be done by the National Assembly,” he said.
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