By Christiana Ekpa
The House of the Representatives Public Accounts Committee, (PAC) on Thursday summoned the Nigerian Custom Service, NSC, over non-rendition of the audited financial accounts to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation from between 2017 and 2019 financial years.
The Committee chaired by Hon Busayo Oluwole Oke (PDP-OSUN) handed down the ruling while grilling the Management of the Agency led by Comproller of Customs S. I. Ibrahim on the audit queries raised against the Agency by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation.
Ibrahim had told the Committee that the reports were being delayed by the external Auditor engaged by the Agency and that the Auditor had promised to make the reports available soon which the Committee turned down but requested for a specific time the reports would be ready for redition.
The NCS representative then pleaded for more time for the external Auditor to complete his job to facilitate the redition.
Consequently, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon Oke, rule that the Auditor of the NCS, should appear before the Committee to come and brief the Parliament were audited accounts of the Agency were being delayed for three years following a motion moved to that effect by a member of the Committee.
Hon Oke stated that this became necessary so as to give the NCS chance of fair hearing on the audit query raised by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation against the Service.
This came just as a report from forensic auditors, KPMG has indicted about seven government revenue-generating agencies for under-remitting over N526.35 billion and $21.199 billion to the Federation Account between January 2010 and June 2015.
A report laid before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts which made available to news men in Abuja also showed that four other agencies under-remitted revenue to the Consolidated Revenue Fund amounting to about N49.160 billion within the same period.
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The report listed possible under remittances or over remittance against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as N557,852, 222,257.28 and $9,048,920,931.38 while the figure listed against the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stood at N39,313,909.42 and $29,261,227.46.
It also listed N6,995,100,228.35 against the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), N292,287,246.65 against the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), $570,632,772.46 against the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and $4,138,465,740.01 against the Federal Government.
It however explained that “NNPC represented that it has an outstanding claim of N797,710,684,354.00 against the federation prior to 1 January 2010.
This period does not relate to our view period. Hence the legacy claim is not reflected in our figure above,” the report added.
