The House of Representatives has threatened to deduct from source, several billions of Naira from the allocations of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) as a result of improper remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federation.
The House also directed the management of Mobile Telecommunication Nigeria (MTN) to furnish the house evidence of tax remittances to government since the beginning of its operations in Nigeria.
Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, James Faleke (APC, Lagos) who spoke at the resume investigative sitting of remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund said the examination body failed to make proper remittances to the government coffer between 2011 and 2015.
Faleke said records before the committee have shown that, JAMB has failed to remit anything as it claimed that it was running at a loss, adding that the body must inform the House how the organisation gets money to run its operations in the year 2015.
Representative of the JAMB Registrar, Muftau Bello said when the present JAMB management came on board, they started remitting funds without defaulting, adding that they even overpaid the amount due in 2017 by over a billion Naira.
The House however placed the agency on Status Enquiry to ascertain the billions owed federal government by JAMB from 2011 to 2015, warning that the committee may direct the Ministry of Finance to deduct all the monies owed by JAMB from source.
The committee has also directed MTN to provide the House with its financial details and give an insight into its operations and remittances of revenues and other funds to the government since the beginning of its operations.
The Company’s Head of Finance, Olajide Yesufu who led the MTN team to the investigative hearing presented the financial statements and other documents in three volumes said and informed the Committee that MTN has been remitting revenues due to the government over the years.
He said MTN also collects VAT on behalf of the federal and state government which were remitted through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), adding that records submitted to the committee have many accounting technicalities which have to be broken down and explained.
He promised to provide all the details and other documents to the committee when next they appear.