Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi is expected to appear before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts to defend the audit queries on non-remittance of various statutory levies worth N328.707 billion collected in 2020 fiscal year.
The audit queries were contained in the report submitted by the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation (OAuGF) through the office of the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA) in December, 2023 for legislative action.
The oAuGF alleged that NCS collected different Federation Account Levies including CET Levies, Rice Levy, 100% Cigarette Levy, 30% Textile Levy, 30% Levy on Wine and Spirit, 30% Levy on Sanitary Wares, Wheat Flour Levy and Wheat Grain Levy, but only remitted CET levies to the Federation’s accounts shared at the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) by the three tiers of government.
“The sum of N328,706,765,904.74 was the revenue collected by NCS in respect of the levies in and were not part of Federation Account Levies shared at Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) from January 2016 to December 2020”.
It however maintained that there was no documents presented by NCS to substantiate non-remittance of the N328.707 billion into the Federation Account.
As encapsulated in the report, OAuGF attributed the anomalies to weaknesses in the internal control system at the NCS around collection and remittance of revenue particularly by the Heads of Accounts Department and Federation Account Revenue Unit who should have ensured complete remittance of all Federation Account Revenue to the appropriate quarters.
oAuGF further posited that the non-remittance led to loss of government revenue and unauthorized utilization of Federation Account revenue and levies, while asking the Comptroller General should be requested to account for the money.
The report also said the service debited the Federations Account with an unsubstantiated N13.905 billion not related to the FAAC remittances without any document presented to substantiate the debits.
It accuses the NCS management of operating a weak internal control system around proper record maintenance and follow through process on records of Federation Account Revenue at CBN, particularly at Management level and accounts section which should maintain all relevant books and documents and ensure parity between NCS documents and CBN statements.
Meanwhile, NCS management in its response to the oAuGF’s audit query explained that the debit transaction in the Federation Account was as a result of double entries made by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) during their regular system upgrade.
It further noted that the monthly reconciliation with CBN and OAGF revealed that the entries are correct.
Office of the Auditor General for the Federation also alleged that the NCS did not remit the sum of N10.559 billion being part of revenue collected from Import Duties, CET Levies and NCS VAT between January 2016 and December 2020, while failing to present documents to substantiate non-remittance of the amount into the Federation Account.
it also said that the Customs did not remit the sum of N1.704 billion being part of Federation Account Levies (other than CET Levies) collected between January 2016 and December 2020, to the Federation Account, while failing to substantiate under remittance.
In line with extant legislative practice, House Committee on Public Accounts chaired by Hon. Bamidele Salam is expected to invite the NCS Comptroller General to defend the audit queries.
