Posted by From Josephine Lohor in Abuja on
National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC), yesterday submitted its first half (January to June) 2005 report to President Olusegun Obasanjo, in which it stated that banks appointed by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigeria Custom Service and branches of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to collect revenue, defaulted in the remittance and transfer of N17.6231 billion to the Federation Account.
National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC), yesterday submitted its first half (January to June) 2005 report to President Olusegun Obasanjo, in which it stated that banks appointed by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigeria Custom Service and branches of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to collect revenue, defaulted in the remittance and transfer of N17.6231 billion to the Federation Account.
The NEIC report also reveals that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was yet to pay N122.387 billion due in June 2005 for crude taken for local consumption.
Chairman of the NEIC, Professor Ibrahim Ayagi, in a press statement on the highlights of the report, said 'Government lost a total revenue of N5.600 billion due to import concession on goods with the Cost, Freight and Insurance (CIF) value of N15.519 billion between January and June, 2005."
Ayagi said that the federally collected revenue for January to June 2005 was N2.380 billion of which N2,252 billion was to be credited to the Federation Account. The amount collected from oil revenue items was N2,075 billion, which was 92.14 per cent of the Federation revenue for the period.
Non-oil federation revenue collected amounted to N177.02 billion, which was 7.86 per cent of the Federation revenue, he added.
Delving into the expenditure profile of the Federal Government for the period January to June 2005 was N680.8 billion. The total recurrent expenditure for the same period was N517.76 billion. Gross personnel cost, including pension constituted 48.47 per cent of total recurrent expenditure or 36.85 per cent of total expenditure. The sum of N155.2131 billion was released directly and N37.8501 billion transferred to ministries, departments and agencies for capital expenditure for January to June 2005.
The total sum of N60.027 billion or 31.1 per cent was accessed by 21 beneficiaries in the period.
He said that Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Lagos states were yet to pay salaries of between two to three months mainly to the educational institutions, just as federal establishments also owed between two to three months' salaries and arreas in Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Cross River, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Kaduna, Lagos, Niger, Osun, Rivers and Sokoto states.
The NEIC also observed that there has been an increase in inflation rate from 9.8 per ent in January to 16.7 percent in June on the year-on year average adopted by the Federal Government, while a 12-month average shows a decline from 14.0 per cent to 12.7 per cent in June.
It added that 'with the debt relief recently granted Nigeria, Nigeria would make some savings from US $1.5 billion to US$2.0 billion which was used annually just to service the outstanding debt stock of US$29.185 billion and the unpaid arrears".
The NEIC advised the government to 'conclude the consessioning of the Nigeria Railway corporation so that rail transportation could be available for the transportation of bulk products to long distances, encourage Development Banks to give loans at concessionary interest rates to the investors who would want to build cement and sugar plants and consider reducing duty rates on plants imported for the setting up of sugar and cement factories."
It added that the government should provide adequate funding to enable the Federal Ministry of Industries perform its monitoring functions.
The Committee, after monitoring the National Open University of Nigeria and the National Commission for Nomadic Education among other institutions, observed that 'non-release of capital allocations in 2002 and 2003 slowed down the pace of anticipated rehabilitation of old facilities and infrastructures in tertiary institutions. The projects financed by the Education Tax Fund, ETF, were very visible and relevant in the tertiary institutions".
Obasanjo, while responding, thanked the committee for providing what he called 'a second opinion on what Government and its agencies had been doing", adding that 'most of your findings agree with the situation as we think".
While reiterating his administration's determination to diversif the economy from oil and gas to non-oil and non-gas exports, said that Government is determined to address seasonal high prices in food items and added that the strategic reserve is now capable of storing up to half a million tones of grain.