By Gift Chapi Odekina
The House of Representatives committee on finance on Tuesday queried the Federal Airport Authority (FAAN) over unremitted sum of N65.663 billion to the Federation Account from 2014 till date.
The committee also gave FAAN three weeks to provide relevant document and reasons why the agency could not meet up with the expected revenue remittance from 2014 to date in accordance with the law.
The chairman of the committee, Rep. James Faleke while expressing displeasure at the investigative hearing in Abuja, expressed displeasure over the reported challenges of actual receipts meeting its invoiced services to customers, as explained by the Managing Director, Capt. Rabiu Yadudu.
The committee directed FAAN to within two weeks, provide it with the list of such invoices issued with their values, its remittance treasury receipts for the period, details of the reasons behind the differences between the actual remittances and expected revenues.
Stating the committee’s position during a meeting with some revenue generating agencies of the Federal Government, the Chairman also demanded from FAAN, its bank statements from Zenith Bank and First Bank, its internal audit reports for the period under review, as well as those of the Auditor General of the Federation, details of all contracts awarded, performances of revenue heads, and all other supporting documents.
The committee which also frowned at some spotted discrepancies in the record of remittances by FAAN and those of the Accountant General of the Federation pointed out that based on the document presented by FAAN, a total of N74.663 billion was expected between 2014 and 2019, but only N9.00 billion was actually remitted in the period.
According to Faleke, in 2014, N9.48 billion was expected while only N500 million was remitted, and from the expected N10.89 billion, N2.151 billion was remitted instead, while for 2016, N1.156 billion was remitted out of the expected N11.6 billion.
Also in 2017, he said the records showed that only N1.511 billion was remitted N13.19 billion, N1.77 billion remitted out of N14 billion in 2018, and out of N15.49 in 2019, only N1.539 billion was remitted by FAAN.
Earlier, the Managing Director of FAAN, Captain Rabiu Yadudu told the committee that its operational demand to meet global standards and other inherent challenges placed a huge burden on FAAN in meeting up the expected revenues, saying it may need some waivers to cope.
He explained that the agency has written the Minister of Aviation, relevant committees of the National Assembly and other stakeholders, detailing those challenges, as he pleaded; “we are also asking this committee to support us, so that we can meet up”.
