National Assembly moves to curb corruption in revenue generation by MDAs

[bayo4luv]

In an effort to boost the nation's revenue profile and curb sharp practices in the country, all revenue generating ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) must henceforth disclose the total income generated on quarterly basis to the National Assembly as against the practice of "spend as it comes". 

The legislature on discovery of revenue leakages worth several billions of naira also moved to amend various provisions and sections of the Acts establishing all the MDAs which empowered them to spend the revenue generated without recourse to the National Assembly. 

The House of Representatives and Senate had on Thursday passed the sum of N4,608,616,278,213 for the 2010 Appropriation Act out of which N180,279,158,994 is for statutory transfers; N497,071,797,452 for debt service; N2,077,358,560,347 is for expenditure while N1,853,906,761,420 is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure for the year ending December 31, 2010. 

Meanwhile, various MDAs are expected to remit to the federation account all unspent fund from the 2009 Appropriation, which was extended by the resolution of the National Assembly due to poor budget implementation especially in the area of capital projects. 

The resolution was contained in the 2010 Appropriation Act passed on Thursday by the House of Representatives, which mandated "all accounting officers of ministries, parastatals and departments of government who control heads of expenditures shall upon the coming into effect of this Act to furnish the National Assembly on quarterly basis with detailed information on the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the agency in any form whatsoever." 

The Act also mandated all accounting officers of ministries, parastatals and departments who control heads of expenditures to furnish the National Assembly on quarterly basis with detailed information on all foreign and or domestic assistance received from any agency, person or organisation in any form whatsoever" with a view to ensuring accountability and transparency in the federal civil service. 

To ensure timely release of the funds appropriated by the National Assembly for execution of capital projects, the Act also mandated the accountant-general of the federation (AGF) to "forward to the National Assembly full details of funds released to the government agencies immediately such funds are released."

National Assembly moves to curb corruption in revenue generation by MDAs

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