The House of Representatives Committee on Finance on Wednesday grilled the National Examinations Council (NECO) over failure to remit the sum of N636,778,000 to the Federal Government in 2019.
At the resumed hearing into the alleged $30 billion annual revenue leakages, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. James Faleke, asked the Acting Registrar of NECO, Ebikibina Ogborodi, and other top management staff of the body to explain the whereabouts of the funds.
Ogborodi had told the lawmakers that NECO had an operating surplus of N1,278, 462,493 and required to remit N1,022, 769,994 (80 percent) of the funds to the government.
He, however, noted that only N385,991,627 was remitted to the federal government, saying the agency was owed by some state governments.
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The registrar said: “The balance is because some state governments who did the examinations are yet to pay. Zamfara was the highest debtor with N1, 022,234,000. Others are Adamawa (N281, 455, 500), Kano (N240, 043, 000), Gombe (N7, 214, 150), Borno (N40,027,675) and Niger (N234,453,157).”
He told the committee that NECO management had written to relevant authorities to help recover the money.
Faleke, who did not hide his dissatisfaction with the NECO registrar’s response, threatened that the Accountant General of the Federation would block the body’s account and only make money available to them to conduct examinations.
He directed the agency’s management to come back in two weeks with all relevant documents about their transactions.
By: John Chukwu
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