The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions has started investigation into the allegation of unappropriated spending totaling N567 billion by the Nigeria Customs Service and the Federal Inland Revenue Service from January 2005 till the date.
The Senate’s decision was sequel to a petition written by Ngozika Ihuoma, the Executive Secretary of Legislative Watch, a non-govermental organization.
In the petition, dated August 13, 2015, to the President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, the petitioner contended that contrary to Section 162 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), both agencies failed to render account of the use of Cost of Collection from January 2005 till the date.
The contention is that the money retained by the agencies ought to have gone into bettering the lot of Nigerians as the Federal, States and Local Governments should have shared it.
Section 162 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) states: “Any amount standing to the credit of the Federation Account shall be distributed among the Federal and State Governments and the local government councils in each state is such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.”
The petition titled: “Re: Investigation of Usage of 7% Cost of Collection Paid to Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and 4% Paid to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) from Federation Account from 2005 to Date,” posited that both federal agencies have been shortchanging the Federal Government without appropriation from the National Assembly.
This development, the petitioner said, formed part of the leakages to the Federation Account.
He therefore called on the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to investigate the use of the 7 per cent Cost of Collection released to the Nigeria Customs Service from January 2005 till the date.
The organization implored the Committee to investigate the use of 4 per cent Cost of Collection released to during the same period.
Specifically, Ihuoma accused the Comptrollers-General of the NCS in the period under review of “using 7% of Cost of Collection to buy houses for private uses”.
Attaching a copy of the Summary of Gross Revenue Allocation by the Federation Account Allocation Committee, he alleged that both agencies refused to put over N567 billion into the Federation Account.
Federal Ministry of Finance documents presented to the Committee by the petitioner indicated average monthly collection by the NCS to be N2.5 trillion and the total amount not remitted by the Service over the period 126 months (January 2005 to July 2015) at N315 billion.
In addition, the document showed an average monthly Collection of the FIRS as N2 trillion and puts the total amount not remitted by FIRS over the same period at N252 billion.
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