The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) has accused two government agencies – the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) – of failing to remit their operating surpluses amounting to N28.27bn.
At separate meetings held between the FRC and the two agencies in Abuja yesterday, officials of FRC also accused the two agencies of contravening the FRC Act 2007 by failing to submit their audited accounts, approved annual budgets and Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
FRC said SEC had failed to remit N10.34bn accruing to the agency as operating surplus in 2007 and N11.61bn in 2008 while it said that NPA failed to remit N3.79bn in 2007 and N2.53bn in 2008.
In a brief made available to SEC officials ahead of the meeting on Monday, FRC said, “In the process of monitoring the compliance of SEC to the FRA 2007, we observed the following:
“For year 2007, 80 per cent of SEC operating surplus was supposed to be N11,152,535,000 rather than N808,736,586,40 which SEC had earlier remitted to the Federal Government as 80 per cent of its operating cash surplus. SEC has therefore been unduly withholding the balance of N10, 343,798, 413.60 due to the Federal Government.
“SEC’s 2008 audited financial report indicated an excess of income over expenditure of N14, 506,368,610. Eighty per cent of this sum is due the Federal Government and should thus have been remitted into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federal Government before the end of April 2009.
“In spite of all the reminders that this commission has sent SEC, there is no indication that SEC has made this due remittance after these years.”
FRC added, “There is no evidence that SEC has produced its audited financial reports for 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013. Each year’s account was due on 31st March of the succeeding year.
“In spite of this commission’s various requests, SEC has not availed the FRC of its three-year estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2010 – 2012, 2012 – 2014 and 2013 – 2015. SEC has failed to forward to the FRC its approved annual budgets for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
“There is no indication to the effect that SEC has appropriately computed and duly remitted 80 per cent of its operating surpluses for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.”
Sunday Garuba, deputy director, Treasury at SEC, said the audited accounts of the agencies for the years demanded by FRC were ready and would be made available.
He also said that as a regulator, SEC had been sticking to the rules but added that in recent times; the agency had been operating on the basis of zero budget and that the downturn in the capital market operation beginning from 2008 had affected the capacity of the organisation to make money.
In another brief on NPA, FRC accused SEC of failure to prepare and publish their 2012 and 2013 audited financial reports in compliance with Section 23 (3) of the FRA, 2007; failure to create a General Reserve Fund and allocate thereto, 20 per cent of its operating surplus pursuant to section 22 (1) of the FRA, 2007.
It said the agency failed to remit N3,788,116,000 to the Consolidated Revenue Fund being operating balance of its operating surplus for 2007 and another operating surplus of N2,527,637,200 for 2008.
Chief Victor Murako, chairman of FRC, said it was imperative for all government agencies to remit their operating surpluses to the government coffers, adding that the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan cannot be realised without proper funding.