The Senate through its Public Accounts Committee (SPAC) has vacated an N62.2 billion under-remittance query slammed on the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation in the 2019 audit report.
On Tuesday, the committee held an investigative session on 77 queries on financial irregularities raised against Customs in audit reports for 2019 and 2020. The panel has called on the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi.
The session was a smooth sail for Customs as the CG gave convincing responses to queries one, two and three read to him by a representative of the Auditor General of the Federation.
Meanwhile, the Auditor General’s representative, as directed by the SPAC Chairman, Senator Ibrahim Dankwabo, Gombe North, read out that in 2017, Customs collected N691.242 billion as total revenue, but remitted N629.23 billion, leaving a balance of N62.2 billion unremitted into the Federation Account.
In his response, Adeniyi said the N62.2 billion categorised as unremitted or under-remittance were levies collected by Customs for other agencies and were not meant for the Federation Account.
“The N62.2 billion under-remittance alleged against Customs in the 2019 audit report was wrongly arrived at through misclassification of levies collected,” the CG explained.
He said while most of the levies were to be collected and remitted into the Federation Account, others, like those on local production of wheat, textiles and wines, do not go into the account. “Totality of which explained the alleged unremitted N62.2 billion,” he said.
Queries 2 and 3 were explained in similar fashion. The responses made a member of the committee, Senator Babangida Hussaini, Jigawa North West to ask why the issues got to committee level.
‘I also was in the civil service before venturing into politics just like the Chairman of the Committee. “Query one, two and three that you have responded to should have been trashed out at reconciliation level with the auditors and not allowed to get to this stage, Hussaini said.
The Customs boss reminded the committee that the years under review were a time when the Senate and Customs had a frosty relationship. The committee decided to form a small committee to meet with Customs for reconciliation of issues raised in the rest of the 74 queries based on his explanation.
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