• Defaulters face 10 years imprisonment
National Assembly has begun a major check against revenue leakages by empowering the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to monitor remittances to the Federation Account from any agency.
The interim report on a bill for the repeal and re-enactment of the RMAFC Act, which was exclusively obtained by The Guardian, prescribes 10 years imprisonment for “any person, who distorts or fraudulently appropriates to himself or to any other person, of any revenue disbursed from the Federation Account under Section 162(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.”
The bill, which is being processed by a joint committee, comprising Senate’s committees on Finance and Appropriation, specifically added new roles to the RMAFC to make it a monitoring and probing authority over key revenue-generating agencies.
In that report, RMAFC is “to demand and obtain from any government agency or company, or any person information, data, books, documents or returns on the remittance of accruals into or disbursement of revenue from the Federation Account.
Once the report is adopted and the bill is passed by both chambers of the National Assembly and assented to by the President the Commission is mandated to “also monitor the unspent revenue accrual to the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission as well as the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority in the Federation Account.
Other new functions of RMAFC include monitoring the dividends of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) meant for the Federation; monitoring any receipt, however described, arising from the operation of any law; monitoring returns, however described, arising from or in respect of any property held by the Government of the Federation; and monitoring return by way of interest held on loans and dividends in respect of shares or interest held by the Government of the Federation in any company or statutory body, including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).”
The new law provides various sanctions against defaulters in remittances of revenue accruals including a five-year jail term.
