The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives has given the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) a 21-day ultimatum to account for an unremitted operating surplus of N45 billion.
Naija News reports that the amount, which covers the period from 2007 to 2021, was revealed during a public hearing on revenue leakages to the Federal Government in Abuja on Tuesday.
Bamidele Salam, the committee chairman from Osun State and a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), chaired the session in which discrepancies in the SEC’s financial records were scrutinized.
According to the FRC, the SEC has failed to respond to inquiries regarding the unremitted funds since a 2022 report detailing the computed liabilities against the exchange commission.
“We have written the SEC on December 20, 2022, intimating the commission of our computed liability for the period 2007 to 2021 and the said liability amounted to N45.01 billion only. Up till now, we have not received any response from them. So, as far as we are concerned, they have accepted the liability and that is what we have recorded against the commission,” Mr. Bello Aliyu, a representative from the FRC, informed the committee.
The Director-General of SEC, Lamido Yahaya, countered the claims during the hearing, stating that the commission had reconciled its figures with the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF).
“I think if the FRC had done a little more work, they would have seen from the OAGF all the efforts that we have made to reconcile the surplus figure from 2007 when FRC came into being,” Yahaya explained.
Despite the SEC’s stance, the committee chairman expressed concerns over the SEC’s preference for dealing directly with the Accountant-General’s office rather than the FRC, which is legally mandated to oversee government agencies’ financial responsibilities.
“I don’t know why SEC is more comfortable with the Accountant-Genera’s office and I don’t want to insinuate anything, but I want to assure the FRC that from now on, all that will stop. We are going to ensure that all agencies make the FRC the major body of government that should ensure compliance with the provision of the Act,” Salam asserted.
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