TheCable

A house of representatives committee has tackled government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) over the alleged concealment of their revenues.

At an interactive session organised by the committee on finance on the 2022-2024 medium-term expenditure framework/fiscal strategy paper (MTEF/FSP) for MDAs on Thursday in Abuja, the lawmakers accused the agencies of denying the federal government money to fund the budget.

The committee further expressed its displeasure for the FG’s plan to borrow N5.62 trillion to finance the deficit in the 2022 budget “while these agencies starve the government of funds”.

Speaking at the public hearing, James Faleke, chairman of the committee, said, “We are not happy the way Nigeria is borrowing N5.62 trillion, and we have some fund somewhere staying fallow without being used.

“For God sake, let us build this country together for the sake of all of us.’’

Faleke said the major problem facing the country was revenue generation, adding that the house of reps would be more interested in how much government agencies could save.

He said that if the house of reps discovered that any of the government agencies’ capital projects were unnecessary, they would be removed in a bid to get revenue for the country.

The committee also directed the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) to provide the turnover of the amount realised from all network operators from 2018 to 2020.

Faleke said it would enable the committee to look at their records and determine if the revenue proposal for 2022 to 2024 would be good for the country.

On his part, Emeka Iseogwu, general manager for finance at Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), who represented the director-general, said the agency was on course in terms of revenue generation.

He said the NPA was targeting a revenue of N338 billion in 2022.