CACOL backs Reps’ move to curtail revenue leakages in MDAs

The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has thrown its weight behind the move by the House of Representative to amend the Establishment Act of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDA’s) in a bid to curtail revenue leakages.

A release issued by the Director of Administration and Programmes of the anti-graft organization, Tola Oresanwo, on behalf of the chairman, Debo Adeniran, noted: “The House of Representatives observed that most of the agencies leverage on their establishment acts to spend their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), thereby denying the government of needed revenue.

“Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, James Faleke, disclosed this at the end of the first session of the Committee/Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) interactive session on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) in Abuja.

“The committee noted that some of the acts that warrant certain government establishment to spend their IGR are self-serving and against national interest, saying the need to expeditiously amend such acts cannot be overemphasized.”

The committee also expressed worry over the generating agencies’ refusal to remit revenues due to government, saying their action is putting a major strain on resources which ordinarily should be available for government to pursue its development objectives.

The chairman of CACOL opined that “It is now commonplace for the management of most MDAs to siphon money meant to be remitted to the federal government as a result of lacuna created by their respective Establishment Acts.

“Some of them cannot account for their internally generated revenue while others remit very intangible and paltry sums of money to the federal government as revenue.

“This is a classic example of how much damage corruption and mismanagement of scarce resources have caused us as a nation.”

Adeniran commended the committee’s recommendation and averred that, “the Establishment Acts which were meant to facilitate the smooth running of these MDAs have now turned to tools or pawns in the hands of the management of the MDAs which they use to mismanage funds.

“We, therefore, welcome the Reps’ moves to amend these Acts so that any unnecessary spending from the IGR of these MDAs would be seen as gross violation of the law and punitive measures would be meted out to erring officials.”