The Senate on Tuesday approved the sum of Two hundred and thirty-eight billion, One hundred and forty-nine million, Three hundred and Twenty-five thousand, Eight hundred and thirty-two Naira Seventy kobo (N238,149,325,832.70) for the Nigeria Customs Service for the 2020 financial year.
\nThis was not without eyebrows being raised by some Senators, who kicked against the Seven percent Cost of Collection (N112,424,425,326) due to the Nigeria Customs Service from the federation account, one which they argued was not justified, particularly because the service is a revenue generating agency.
\nThose who raised concerns Senators Olamilekan Solomon Adeola (APC, Lagos West); James Manager (PDP, Delta South); Bala Ibn Na\u2019Allah (APC, Kebbi South); and Gabriel Suswam (PDP, Benue North East).
\nFurthermore, Senator Bala Ibn Na\u2019Allah, while objecting to some items in the 2020 budget for the NCS as contained in the committee\u2019s report, queried the allocation of over one hundred and twenty million naira for the purchase of television units.
\nBut for Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, the seven percent retention incentive was worth it.
\nHe maintained that the Seven percent collection from the Federation account is an incentive intended to motivate the revenue generating agency to live up to the expectations of its responsibility.
\n\u201cThis Customs Service is a revenue generating agency, last year the report says they performed so well and even collected above the target, this is what we want.
\n\u201cSo, if there\u2019s anything we would be doing is to encourage our revenue generating agencies to perform. We should be giving them incentives even when there\u2019s none actually, so that we are able to get more and more resources.
\nThe budget approval for Customs came following presentation and consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff.
\nChairman of the Committee, Senator Francis Alimikhena (APC, Edo North), in his presentation said out of the total expenditure for the year 2020, N98.61 billion representing 41.41 percent is for Personnel cost; N15.95 billion representing 6.70 percent is for Overhead Cost; and N123.59 billion representing 51.89 percent is for Capital Cost.
\nAccording to the lawmaker, the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has a revenue framework of N1.5 trillion to be remitted to the Federation account; and N178.7 billion to Non-Federation account for the 2020 fiscal year.
\nHe further disclosed that the NCS in 2020 will undertake the recruitment of three thousand two hundred (3,200) officers and men, as well as implement the Customs Service Salary structure for 15,892 officers and men of the Service.
\nLawmakers who spoke in support of the adoption and passage of the committee\u2019s report include: Senators Jibrin Barau (APC, Kano North); Ibikunle Amosun (APC, Ogun Central); Bassey Akpan (PDP, Akwa-Ibom North West); Sabi Aliyu Abdullahi (APC, Niger North); and Yamaha Abdullahi (APC, Kebbi North).
\nHowever, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan, in his concluding remarks, commended the Customs Service for beating its revenue target in 2019.
\nWhile charging committees of the Senate to properly oversight relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government, Lawan advised the Committees to get an understanding as to why their annual budgets make provision for certain items in dispute.
\n\u201cI think what is crucial is for us to be up-to-date and prompt with our oversight. All those expenditures that are expected to be done, we should be able to understand how and when they are done.\u201d
\nLawan warned Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government that over the years have failed to submit audited reports of their annual expenditure to comply before the end of the first quarter of 2021, or risk facing drastic action by the National Assembly during appropriation.
\n\u201cThe Second aspect is the audited accounts. It is a sad commentary that the agencies of government have not been submitting their audited accounts. This is unacceptable, and I think we need to take drastic action here.
\n\u201cThis is a new dawn. We have passed the budget last year, the operation or implementation of the budget has started, and we expect every MDA to present their audited accounts before the end of the year, especially towards the end of December, or at least the first quarter of next year.
\n\u201cIf any agency refuses or fails, without any cogent reason, we have every reason to take a drastic action when it comes to appropriation, because not to account for what you\u2019re given the previous year is to say that you\u2019re not prepared to take a new budget.
\n\u201cSo, I\u2019m advising the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), especially those that are not up-to-date with their audited accounts to do so, because we could decided as a National Assembly, to take punitive measures against agencies of government that are not up-to-date with their audited accounts,\u201d the Senate President said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Senate on Tuesday approved the sum of Two hundred and thirty-eight billion, One hundred and forty-nine million, Three hundred and Twenty-five thousand, Eight hundred and thirty-two Naira Seventy kobo (N238,149,325,832.70) for the Nigeria Customs Service for the 2020 financial year. This was not without eyebrows being raised by some Senators, who kicked against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[949,184,88],"class_list":["post-24326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news","tag-949","tag-budget","tag-customs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}