INVESTIGATIVE HEARING: Reps. Investigates REMITA Revenue in Federation Account Between 2015-2022
The federal House of Representatives public account committee opened up investigation on the alleged revenue leakages through REMITA platform and non-compliance substantively with standard operating procedure and other allied service agreement’.
It was gathered that About 34.311 trillion Naira revenue was generated through REMITA platform into the Federation Account between 2015 and 2022.
The Managing Director/CEO of REMITA, Deremi Atanda disclosed this during the investigative hearing on ‘alleged revenue leakages through REMITA platform and non-compliance substantively with standard operating procedure and other allied service agreement’, held at the instance of the House Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Hon. Bamidele Salam.
According to the documents presented to the Committee, instead of N343.109 billion fee income due at contracted rate of one percent flat which the stakeholders are entitled to (against the conventional five to seven percent fee) according to the agreement signed in 2015, the sum of N23.922 billion actual fee income was applied.
While dismissing insinuation that REMITA imposed additional fee apart from the approved N150 (which represents 10 cents at current exchange rate) on the revenue generating MDAs, Mr. Atanda disclosed that the REMITA payment gateway platform provides additional technology services to the Federation at no cost, despite pay in foreign exchange for hosting the platform on cloud-based platform.
According to him, the sum of N1.5 trillion was remitted through the platform in 2015, N2.8 trillion in 2016, N3.7 trillion in 2017, N4.6 trillion in 2018, N4.6 trillion in 2019, N4.2 trillion in 2020 being COVID year, N6 trillion in 2021 while N6.8 trillion was realized in 2022 fiscal year, respectively.
Mr. Atanda who confirmed that Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) engaged REMITA to provide the service as part of efforts geared towards shoring up revenue accrued to Federation, affirmed that relevant agreements were signed, and standard operating procedures were followed.
He also added that efforts are ongoing to capture revenue being paid through foreign exchange into revenue payment platform, adding that the pilot scheme arrangement being worked out in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs will come up in the next few weeks.
While ruling, Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Hon. Bamidele Salam emphasized the need for physical appearance of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, CBN Governor and Accountant General of the Federation before the Committee, on Tuesday, 20th February 2024.
