Government Revenue Trapped In Commercial Banks – RMFAC Chair

A significant portion of government revenue is reportedly still held in un-remitted commercial bank vaults, according to the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC).

Naija News reports that the commission also voiced worry about revenue-generating agencies’ failure to remit funds to the government, to the point where a sizable portion of funds has been held in reserve in banks.

Voicing this concern while receiving the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Bashir Adeniyi, on Wednesday in Abuja, the Chairman, RMFAC, Mohammed Shehu, lamented that the abuse of procedure that results in loss of revenue, including evasion of payment of levies, duties and other related revenue, has created room for a lot of funds to be trapped with the stakeholders, especially the commercial banks.

The RMAFC is a federal government organization in charge of mobilising and dispersing revenue to Nigeria’s three tiers of government.

The commission also oversees the fiscal operations of the federal, state, and local governments to ensure that they comply with the law.

The commission had collected nearly N500 billion in unremitted revenue for the federation from government-owned organizations.

Shehu further assured  that the commission is prepared to take on the duty of carrying out its duties in accordance with the current presidential direction to prevent income leakages, regardless of their source.

He said, “As you are aware, the major issue of concern to RMAFC is the non-remittance of monies to the government coffers, which has created room for a lot of funds trapped with the stakeholders, especially the commercial banks.

“We, therefore, seek to leverage your timely visit to enlist your support for the commission to recover these funds and deliberately improve revenue mobilisation, block revenue leakages and advise the present administration on appropriate measures to increase revenue generation for the Federation Account.”

In his remarks, the head of Customs expressed gratitude to the commission for alerting it to potential leaks and emphasized that the agency is prepared to exceed its N3.2 trillion collection target from the previous year.

He said, “The Nigeria Customs Service is empowered by Section 4 of the NCS ACT 2023 to collect and account for revenue from import duties, excise duties, and other taxes and levies. The service receives an annual revenue target from the Federal Government. For the year 2023, the NCS was given a target of N3.7tn and generated N3.21tn, which represents 87 per cent of the total revenue target.

“The Customs pledges its unalloyed support and understanding for what the commission is set to do and that is promoting and enhancing the environment under which we generate our revenue and ensuring that there will be proper accountability through remittances of revenue collected and most importantly block whatever revenue drains that we may have in our system. We know those areas where there could be leakages and we are asking the right question to resolve them.”