Nigeria Customs Probed for Non-Submission of Audited Reports
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has queried the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) over the non-submission of audited financial statements for the 2016 to 2018 financial years to the Auditor General of the Federation.
This came to the fore at the hearing of the committee led by Rep. Bamidele Salam in Abuja. The Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr Adewale Adeniyi, who appeared with his lieutenants was questioned over queries raised by the Auditor General of the Federation on the 2017 audited report.
The queries include: under-remittance of revenue into the federation account for the year 2017 and, under-disclosure of outstanding remittance for the year 2016. Others include non-maintenance of bank statements and bank reconciliation statements, non-maintenance of revenue collectors’ receipts, and violation of E-payment policy of the federal government.
The query also includes non-submission of audited financial statements for 2016,2017 and 2018 financial years”. Adeniyi responded to the queries that only Common External Tariff was remitted into the federation account by the Office of the Accountant General for the Federation.
He added that others were actively remitted into the Non-Federation Account, stressing that since the inception of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), Area commands do not maintain accounts with commercial banks
He added that all accounts were closed the revenue collected was remitted directly to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the statements were accessed at the customs headquarters through CBN’s Transaction Query System(TQS).
Documents submitted to the committee by the CGC however revealed that the audited financial statements for 2016, 2017, and 2018 financial years were presented to the Auditor General for Federation in 2021. The chairman of the committee directed the Auditor General to present documents on other queries raised against the commission.
