The Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of Economy, Wale Edun, has said that the revenues of government-owned ministries, departments, and agencies rose to N835.70bn in February.
This disclosure was made by the minister during a presentation titled “Reconstructing the Economy for Growth, Investment, and Climate Resilience Development,” delivered at the Lagos Business School Breakfast Club, according to The Punch.
In the figure, it is shown that revenue remitted by the MDAs increased by 441.78 per cent or N681.45bn when compared to revenue generated by MDAs in the same period in 2023.
According to the minister, the automation of the revenues generated by MDAs, received twice daily by the federal government has led to this significant rise in revenue.
He said “There is an increasing revenue contribution of MDAs and GOEs, growing from 154.25 in February 2023 to 835.70bn in February 2024 through an automated two-times daily sweep of 50 per cent of MDAs and GOEs IGR since January 2, 2024,”
Recall in the previous administrations, the federal government has had issues with some MDAs not remitting funds generated to the federation account.
The Senate Committee on Public Accounts in 2021, revealed that the inability of the government to enforce financial regulations has once again been exposed by some government ministries, departments, and agencies, which continue to defy the statutory regulations requiring them to remit to the Federation Account trillions of Naira they have generated.
It raised doubts about transparency and accountability in Nigeria’s bloated public service.
However, in December 2023, the Ministry of Finance issued a directive to MDAs to have their 100 per cent internally generated revenue paid into the Sub-Recurrent Account.
This was stated in a circular, noting that the directive was to improve revenue generation, fiscal discipline, accountability, and transparency in the management of government financial resources and prevent waste and inefficiencies.
The circular read “All Ministries, Departments, and Agencies that are fully funded through the annual Federal Government budget (receiving personnel, overhead, and capital allocation) and on the schedule of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 and any addition by the Federal Ministry of Finance should remit 100 per cent of their internally generated revenue to the Sub-Recurrent Account, which is a sub-component of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.”
He underlined the importance of introducing an upgraded model for government revenue assurance, to reduce the budget deficit from 6.1 percent of GDP in 2023 to 3.9 percent.
In addition, he said, “We have taken prudent expenditure measures by minimising unnecessary redundancy, reducing leakages through digitisation, and eliminating inefficiencies. There is also a revamped process for the commencement of 2024 capital expenditure payments for MDAs and GOEs, which is through direct payments to contractors while promoting a government-wide cost curtailment culture across all MDAs & GOEs.”
