Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Muhammad Bello Shehu, has called for greater collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the areas of revenue leakages and remittance to the government in addition to the ensuring recovery of unremitted/lost revenues.
Shehu made the call recently when he paid a courtesy visit to the Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, in his office in Abuja.
“We are calling on EFCC for more collaboration, not only in the area of enforcement, but also intelligence gathering and data sharing with respect to government revenue from any source.
“It is, therefore, important to bring to the fore that the collaboration between RMAFC and EFCC is crucial in addressing the challenges of unremitted revenues to the federation account,” he said.
He disclosed that the Commission had observed that many revenue-generating agencies described as government-owned enterprises (GOE) by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation “are allowed to generate revenue, spend from it and remit the balance as operating surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).”
He recalled the collaboration between RMAFC and EFCC in 2013, when forensic consultants were engaged to recover unremitted and under-remitted revenues collected or deducted from the third party by the banks to the Federation Account covering a period of 2008 to 2015, where N74 billion was recovered.
In his remarks, the chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, stressed the need for enhanced collaboration between the two agencies to ensure proper management of government’s revenue.
According to him, the country can only move forward when there is transparency and accountability in the conduct of government’s business.
He said, “There are things we have been able to do together within the scopes of our mandate and your mandate as well. Transparency and accountability should be embedded in our public life as a nation. That’s the only way we can move forward.”