Senate clears Customs of N62.2bn under-remittance allegation

The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has cleared the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) of an allegation concerning N62.2 billion in under-remittances to the Federation Account, as stated in the 2019 audit report from the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation. The committee decided to vacate the query following explanations provided by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi.

“

The under remittance of N62.2billion leveled against Customs in the 2019 audit report was wrongly arrived at through misclassification of levies collected.

During an investigative session, the audit report's representative explained that in 2017, the NCS collected N691.242 billion but remitted only N629.23 billion, leaving a discrepancy of N62.2 billion. Adeniyi clarified that this amount was not under-remitted but resulted from the misclassification of levies collected on behalf of other government agencies. These specific levies, such as those on local production of wheat, textiles, and wines, were not intended for the Federation Account.

Senators, including Babangida Hussaini, questioned why such matters were not resolved at reconciliation levels with auditors instead of escalating to the Senate. Adeniyi responded by noting that the period under review coincided with a time of strained relationships between the Senate and the Customs Service, which contributed to the issues being revisited.

“

While most of the levies are to be collected and remitted into the federation account, others like the ones on local production of wheat, textiles and wines, etc., do not go into the federation account, the totality of which accounted for the alleged unremitted N62.2 billion.

The committee addressed 77 queries against the NCS from the 2019 and 2020 audit reports. After Adeniyi's explanations for the first three queries, the committee resolved to form a smaller panel to reconcile the remaining outstanding issues. The hearing was chaired by Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo.

“

Queries one, two and three that you have responded to were supposed to have been trashed out at the reconciliation level with the auditors and not allowed to get to this stage.