Senate exonerates Customs of N62.2bn underpayment accusation

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The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has cleared the Nigeria Customs Service of a N62.2 billion under-remittance allegation contained in the 2019 audit report of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.

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The committee, during an investigative session on Tuesday, vacated the query after the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, provided explanations on the alleged financial infraction.

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The session focused on 77 queries raised against the Customs Service in the 2019 and 2020 audit reports.
nFollowing the submissions by the Customs CG, the committee resolved to constitute a smaller panel to reconcile the outstanding issues contained in the remaining queries.n

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The investigative hearing, chaired by Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe North), saw the Customs boss respond to the first three queries presented by representatives of the Auditor-General of the Federation.

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Reading the query, the Auditor-General’s representative explained that in 2017, while the Customs Service recorded a total revenue collection of N691.242 billion, only N629.23 billion was remitted into the Federation Account, leaving an outstanding balance of N62.2 billion.

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Responding, Adeniyi explained that the amount classified as under-remittance was a result of the misclassification of levies collected by Customs on behalf of other government agencies, stressing that the funds were not meant for payment into the Federation Account.

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

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“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,” he said.

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The Customs CG gave similar explanations on the second and third queries, prompting a member of the committee, Senator Babangida Hussaini (Jigawa North West), to question why the matters were allowed to proceed to the level of Senate investigation.

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“I was in the civil service just like the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ibrahim Dankwabo (Gombe North), before venturing into politics. 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,” he said.

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However, Adeniyi reminded the committee that the period under review coincided with a time of a strained relationship between the Senate and the Customs Service.

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The Customs boss said the circumstances surrounding the period contributed to the issues now being revisited by the committee.

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Following the explanations provided, the committee resolved to establish a smaller reconciliation panel to engage the Customs Service on the remaining 74 queries and address outstanding issues from the audit reports.

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