The House of Representatives adhoc committee investigating issues of unclaimed funds, has directed the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), to pay into the federal government coffers, the sum of N13.3 billion unremitted revenues.
The committee at its resumed hearing on Tuesday, also asked NEPZA to provide copies of validated receipts of financial transactions, including it’s remittances to government up to date.
However, the director in charge of finance and administration at NEPZA, Oyesola Oyekunle who made appearance before the Hon. Unyime Idem-led panel insisted that the agency was not indebted to the federal government, as all revenues generated over time have been paid to government up to date.
The committee felt that Oyekunle contradicted himself when he stated that since NEPZA was not fully funded, it remits only 25 percent of its revenue to government and has paid N3.93 billion naira as its last to government, making it to be up to date in payment between the period under review – 2000 to date.
According to the director, NEPZA operates under a circular issued by the ministry of finance and not stipulated extant financial laws as expected by the committee hence the remittance percentage to government.
The committee insisted that the N13.3 billion arrived at was calculated based on the 80 percent revenue remittance provisions to government as contained in the financial act and not on any circular which was inferior to the law.
The committee adjourned its sitting for a later date, directing the agency to reconcile their audited documents with that of the committee’s consultants, and come up with a common position.
