House of Reps laments lack of transparency in foreign mission revenue

●Probes five-year revenue generation

House of Representatives on Tuesday expressed grave concerns over the lack of transparency in the collection of revenue accruing to the coffers of various Nigerian Foreign Missions across the world.

Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Hon. Bamidele Salam expressed displeasure while addressing Accountant General of the Federation (AuGF) during an investigative hearing into the status of automation of foreign currency collection in Nigeria’s Foreign Missions.

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The innovation of Automation of Currency Collection in Nigeria’s Foreign missions is to enable the Federal Government of Nigeria to have adequate and total control over revenue generated in foreign currency and ascertain inflow from Foreign missions to enthrone accountability and transparency.

According to the Accountant General of the Federation, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Sakirat said that Files Solutions Limited was awarded a contract for the automation of foreign currency collection at Nigeria’s foreign missions worldwide at the contract sum of N83.6 million on April 28th, 2021 for 5 years in addition to the commission of 1% to 5% depending on the amount the company can collect.

She said 90 percent which totalled N75.2 million of the payment had been paid to the contractor.

The Accountant General said that the terms of the contract with the contractor were to ensure that the collection of revenue from all Nigerian foreign missions was online in real-time, as well as a multi-currency conversion web portal and multi-language web portal.

According to her, “The Automation of Foreign Currency Collection portal was launched on May 25th, 2023, by the immediate past Minister of Finance but was never put into use as of 5th June, 2024.

“Our office is in the process of obtaining approval from the Ministry of Finance to deploy the software which has been tested.

Discussion is ongoing with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide a list of Foreign Mission for pilot purposes” she explained.

In his remarks, Hon. Timehin Adelegbe, asserted that there is a lack of transparency in foreign revenue collection, which the automation of Foreign Currency Collection will correct.

Reacting to the delay in the deployment of the Automation of Foreign Currency Collection, Hon. Salam said: “I don’t know why we work as this as a country, we are a little bit strange people, what will improve revenue collection, a country that we fund with almost 60 to 70 percent of borrowing and we are talking about improving our revenue collection and making them all transparent and effective.

“How can a country that borrows more than 70 percent to fund its budget ignore the use of a solution that will enhance its revenue collection? I don’t know how much of the funds meant to execute the 2024 budget we have in our kitties now.

“You are not able to fund the budget partly because the money is not there; so we should all work together to improve our revenue. Things can not continue like this.

One of the aggrieved lawmakers who accused officials of the Ministry of sabotage, alleged that “some people don’t want it to work and what he said is very similar to the hint that the Honorable Minister of Finance gave recently when we had a meeting with him that some people don’t want things to work better and they will find a way to ensure that it doesn’t work.

According to him, “If you awarded a contract in 2021 and this is 2024, and they have finished the deployment of the technology only to deploy and we are still on this back and forth, it shows that we need to improve.”

Worried by the ugly development , the lawmakers unanimously expressed overwhelming support for the takeoff of Automation of Foreign Currency Collection and Nigeria’s foreign missions revenue using the automated platform within 60 days without an option of extension.

The Public Accounts Committee also directed the Accountant General to submit records of the gross revenue generated for all foreign missions in the last 5 years.