CACOL BACKS REPS MOVE TO AMEND ESTABLISHMENT ACT OF MDAs TO CURTAIL REVENUE LEAKAGES

The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has thrown
its weight behind the move by the House of Representative to amend the
Establishment Act of MDAs in a bid to curtail revenue leakages.

In a release, issued by the Director of Administration and Programmes
of the anti-graft organization, Tola Oresanwo on behalf of the
Chairman, Debo Adeniran, noted, “It would be recalled that The House
of representatives observed that most of the agencies leverage on
their establishment acts to spend their Internally Generated Revenue
(IGR), thereby, denying the government of needed revenue. Chairman of
the House Committee on Finance, James Faleke, disclosed this, at the
end of the first session of the Committee/Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs) interactive session on the 2022-2024 Medium Term
Expenditure Framework (MTEF) in Abuja. The Committee noted that some
of the acts that warrant certain government establishment to spend
their IGR are self-serving and against national interest, saying the
need to expeditiously amend such acts cannot be overemphasized”.

The Committee also expressed worry over the generating agencies’
refusal to remit revenues due to government, saying their action is
putting a major strain on resources, which ordinarily should be
available for government to pursue its development objectives.

The Chairman of CACOL opined that “It is now commonplace for the
Management of most MDAs to siphon money that were supposed to be
remitted to the Federal Government as a result of lacuna created by
their respective Establishment Acts. Some of them cannot account for
their internally generated revenue while others remit very intangible
and paltry sums of money to the federal government as revenue. This is
a classic example of how much damage corruption and mismanagement of
scarce resources have caused us as a nation”.

Concluding, Mr. Adeniran commended the Committee’s recommendation and
averred that, “the establishment acts which was meant to facilitate
the smooth running of these MDAs have now turned to tools or pawns in
the hands of the management of the MDAs which they use to mismanage
funds. We therefore welcome the Reps moves to amend these Acts so that
any unnecessary spending from the IGR of these MDAs would be seen as
gross violation of the law and punitive measures would be meted out to
erring officials”.

Tola Oresanwo
Director, Administration and Programmes, CACOL.

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