By Mercy Aikoye
The House of Representatives has expressed worries over lack of transparency In the collection of Foreign Mission Revenue.
The Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Hon. Bamidele Salam, registered his displeasure when the Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Sakirat, appeared before the committee on the status of automation of foreign currency collection in Nigeria’s foreign missions.
The innovation of Automation of Currency Collection in Nigeria’s Foreign missions was to enable the Federal Government of Nigeria have adequate and total control over revenue generated in foreign currency and ascertain inflow from foreign missions to enthrone accountability and transparency.
In her submission, the AGF Files Solutions Limited was awarded a contract for the automation of foreign currency collection at Nigeria’s foreign missions worldwide at the contract sum of N83.6 million on April 28th, 2021 for 5 years in addition to the commission of 1-5 percent, which was based on the amount the company can collect.
She explained that 90 percent of the money which was N75.2 million has been paid to the contractor.
The AGF said that the terms of the contract was to ensure that the collection of revenue from all Nigerian foreign missions is online in real-time, as well as a multi-currency conversion web portal and multi-language web portal.
A member of the Committee, Hon. Timehin Adelegbe, stated that there is a lack of transparency in foreign revenue collection, which the automation of Foreign Currency Collection will correct.
Reacting to the delay in the deployment of the Automation of Foreign Currency Collection, the Committee Chairman said, “I don’t know why we work as this as a country, we are a little bit strange people, what will improve revenue collection, a country that we fund with almost 60 to 70 percent of borrowing and we are talking about improving our revenue collection and making them all transparent and effective.
The Committee also ordered the Accountant General of thr Federation to submit records of the gross revenue generated for all foreign missions in the last 5 years.
