The Senate Committee on Public accounts has uncovered non remittance of N2 billion into Federation account by Ministry of Solid Minerals.
The said amount was meant to be remitted into the federation account but was diverted to private pockets.
The panel upon scrutiny of FAAC records discovered that the amount was not paid into the federation account as required by law in 2015, it therefore issued a querry for the ministry appear before it to explain
The query reads, “During examination of FAAC records, we observed that a cumulative total of N9,923,015,028.00 Solid Minerals revenue collected in 2015 was not paid into the Federation Account in the year ended 31st December 2016.
“We noted that the Ministry reported the same total revenue figure for years 2014, 2015 and 2016. From records presented for audit, it was also noted that the sum of N2,838,351,664.97 was collected as solid mineral revenue from January to December, 2016 but this amount was not paid into the Federation Account for distribution in 2016 contrary to section 162 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel has been requested to explain why the Ministry failed to pay the revenues collected into the Federation Account as required by the constitution.”
The Ministry however failed to respond to the query of the Auditor general on the issue of non-remittance of N2billion into the Federation Account.
The Committee however resolved to also summon the officials of the Ministry to explain why the Ministry declined to remit the said amount into federation account.
No response was received at the time of this report.
