The Chairman, Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), Mr Victor Muruako, has said that the commission is more strategic in fighting financial crimes and corruption than other agencies. Muruako made the statement in Abuja on Wednesday when he received officials of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Imo branch, in his office. He said the vision of FRC under the current management was to ensure that it fulfilled its mandate of ensuring fiscal prudence and adequate management of resources.
“We want to ensure that we don’t just exist in the act but we are seen to be doing our assignment and discharging our mandate under the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
“If the commission is given the chance and support to discharge its mandate, there will be little or no assignment for the EFCC and the ICPC. This is because FRC is meant to stop corruption before it occurs.
“We will make it difficult for people to defraud the government,’’ Muruako said.
He said the commission was working to ensure that the Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) under its supervision made appropriate remittances of their operating surpluses into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Revenue generating agencies owe it a duty to the Federal Government to continuously pay their operating surplus into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
“This is why this commission is insisting that all MDAs that are under obligation to pay their operating surpluses must do so. Federal Government cannot continue to rely on oil and gas. The Federal Government has set up sufficient bodies to be able to generate sufficient non-oil revenue for the country,’’ Muruako said. He said the commission was currently reviewing financial records of the 31 corporations under its supervision from 2007, so that those that had short-changed the government would be caught.
The FRC boss also said the commission was currently carrying out a nationwide physical verification of Federal Capital projects to address issues of abandoned projects.
Earlier, the NBA Chairman, Mr Stanley Chidozie, said the association had resolved to have a session during its forthcoming Law Week to be dedicated to looking at: “The Role of Lawyers in Enforcing the FRC Act. “For the success of this commission and the FRC Act, it is important for lawyers to familiarise themselves with the act.
“It is for this reason that we are inviting you to play a key role in our upcoming Law Week in Owerri. As a lawyer yourself; we urge you to make a difference in this organisation. Be a good representative of the Bar just like lawyers ruling in the U.S. and UK have done,’’ he said.
