House of Reps uncovers N65bn under-remittance in FAAN

House of Reps uncovers N65bn under-remittance in FAAN

NEWS DIGEST – The House of Representatives Committee of Finance on Tuesday took the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority(FAAN) Captain Rabiu Yadudu, to task over the huge discrepancies in the accounts of the agency.

According to the chairman of the committee, Hon James Faleke, while the federal government was expecting a total of N74.66 billion from FAAN in terms of remittances between 2014 to 2019, only N9 billion was remitted.

The discovery was made after a meeting of the House Committee on Finance with FAAN on the level of their remittances to the government coffers from 2014 to 2019.

The Committee gave a breakdown of the amounts (both expected and remitted) as: N9.48bn for 2014 while only N500 million was remitted; N10 .89 bn was expected in 2015 but only N2.151bn was remitted; 2016, N11.6bn expected while N1.565 was remitted.

Similarly, in 2017 N13.19 bn was expected but only N1.511bn; 2018, N14 bn was supposed to have been remitted but the government got only N1.788 bn and in 2019, N15.49 bn was meant to have been remitted to government coffers but only N1.35 bn was remitted.

“From the analysis, the remittances from FAAN to the federal coffer was short by N65 billion.

“What the federal government borrowed to finance the budget was not up to the amount you under remitted,” Faleke said.

He said that annual budgets hardly perform beyond 40 percent because of such under-remittances.

Fakeke noted that FAAN cannot be breaking a law on remittances, which allows them to spend only 25 percent of their Internally generates revenue unless they can ask for an amendment.

But Yadudu said that they had been to the Accountant General’s office and discovered the discrepancies.

He said FAAN cannot be able to full comply with the remittance of its IGR because “we have a history of trying to comply with international standards and regulation. This makes it difficult to comply.

“FAAN is subsidising 18 airports that are not viable to keep them operational. Its either we compromise on standard or comply with remittances.:

The committee eventually gave the organisation three weeks to bring documents to explain why the huge gap between the actual remittances and the expected.