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The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) on Monday denied owing the federal government about N1.343 trillion in unremitted revenues.
Last Tuesday, the Federal Government lamented its own enterprises, including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) were owing several trillions of Naira in unremitted operating surplus as at the end of August 2018.
The Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, who disclosed this during his town hall meeting with Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of government-owned enterprises (GOEs) in Abuja named the PPPRA as the worst culprit.
Mr Akabueze said the petroleum products pricing regulatory agency with unremitted operating surplus of over N1.34 trillion, followed by the CBN with about N801.2 billion and Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) with N192.1 billion.
But, the PPPRA in a rebuttal contained a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES by its spokesperson, Apollo Kimchi, described reports accusing it of failing to remit N1.343trillion into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the government as “a distorted fact.”
“The attention of PPPRA has been drawn to the widely circulated allegations in the media, which insinuated that the Agency had failed to remit the sum of N1,343,194,015,405.79 of its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“The information was said to have emanated from a presentation made by the office of the Director General Budget.
“Without intending to generate further controversy, the PPPRA deems it necessary to correct and clarify the rather distorted information to the members of the public regarding its financial obligations to the Consolidated Revenue of Government.
“It needs to be stated that the Agency, without fail, always remits 25% of its total IGR, mainly from its meagre Administrative Charge Collections on quarterly basis to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in line with the statutory requirements of all MDA’s.
“However, it should be noted that since the inception of the Agency, the revenue collected is less than 1.6% of the above-mentioned figure.
“Therefore, PPPRA hereby refutes the claims of failed remittance into the CRF account and describes the assertions as misleading.
“Meanwhile,the Agency would like to use this opportunity to once more assure all Stakeholders and members of the public of uninterrupted products supply and distribution, during this festive period,” the statement said.
At the post-budget presentation analysis session with the media and civil society groups, Mr Akabueze had clarified that the federal government would soon constitute a committee to handle the review of the claims and objections by affected ministries, departments and agencies over the matter.
The DG who responded to PREMIUM TIMES’ question why the government could not deduct from source the amounts the various agencies are alleged to be owing, said all the discrepancies would need to be resolved before such deductions.
“I wish it was that easy,” the DG said. “The issue of non-remittances have accumulated over several years, some as long as a decade.
“All that is happening now is because of government’s strong drive to ensure that revenues come into the federation account. Some of the agencies are contesting the amount put against them. After the differences have been resolved, then a plan will be drawn up on how to recover the monies,” he said.
