Executive Director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) Mr Mordecai Ladan, says the organisation generated N1.3 trillion as revenue and additional 200 million dollars from legacy indebtedness in 2018. Ladan made this known at the opening of a workshop on Revenue Generation, Accounting and Reporting Process to the Federation Allocation Accounting Committee (FAAC) in Abuja, on Tuesday. The workshop was organised by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF). Ladan, represented by Mr Adewale Johnson, said that the DPR had over the years been working assiduously to shore up federation government revenue profile. “In DPR, to shore up our revenue we embarked on reducing approval time for permit certificates as it now takes 48 hours to get approval for permits. All our interventions are to ensure that revenue accruable to the federation account comes in as soon as possible and in 2018, for the first time, we collected N1.3 trillion as revenue for the year.’’
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, while declaring the workshop open, called on revenue generating agencies to re-strategise on their operational methods to surpass their previous records and targets. The minister was represented by Mr Mohammed Dikwa, the Executive Secretary, Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA). According to Ahmed, low oil price and low revenue performance by some of the agencies result in low revenue, which in turn necessitate the introduction of series of palliative measures by the Federal Government to support states in payment of salaries. They include bail-out funds of N10 billion to each of the 35 states that had outstanding salary payments, restructuring of commercial loans and Budget Support Facility which the 35 states also participated in. She added that from the repayment of the Paris Club funds over deductions, N1.38 trillion was paid to the states in three tranches. Ahmed, however, said that there was the urgent need on the part of all revenue generating agencies to ensure accountability and transparency in the collection and remittances to the federation account.
She said that the revised reporting template would provide in transparent manner information on revenue generation. “The reforms introduced by the OAGF and the various agencies should as much as possible lower the time-lag between collection and remittance into the federation account. “The reporting template should be explicit enough and user friendly too,’’ she said. Mr Ahmed Idris, the Accountant-General of the Federation, said that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved a new and improved performance management framework for Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) to raise revenue generation and remittances. He said that performance contracts for Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) to set targets for revenue generation would be set, while mandatory regular monitoring to ensure monthly publication of revenue and expenditure performance would be carried out.
Idris also said that quarterly remittance of interim operating surplus by GOEs would replace the annual remittance. Idris added that the OAGF was working on modalities of establishing revenue department in GOEs to be manned by its staff. The workshop was also attended by Mr Babatunde Fowler, the Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, representatives of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigeria Customs Service. They all expressed their willingness and commitment to ensuring that remittances to the federation account were done transparently and timely.
(NAN)
