The Senate has vacated an N62.2bn under-remittance query against the Nigeria Customs Service for 2019.
Through its Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday, SPAC exonerated Customs after Comptroller General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi gave convincing responses on the first 3 infractions.
The committee also set up a panel to reconcile 76 other queries from the 2019 and 2020 audit reports.
Representative of Auditor General as directed by Chairman of the committee , Senator Ibrahim Dankwabo ( Gombe North ) , read to the Customs CG that in 2017 , while N691.242billion was the total revenue collection by Customs , N629.23billion was remitted, leaving balance of N62.2billion unremitted into the Federation Account .
In his reply to the query , the Customs CG said the N62.2billion classified as unremitted or underremittance in the 2019 audit report, was the total sum of levies collected by Customs on behalf of other agencies which are not for remittance into federation account.
“The under remittance of N62.2billion leveled against Customs in the 2019 audit report , was wrongly arrived at through misclassification of levies collected .
” While most of the levies are to be collected and remitted into federation account , others like the ones on local production of wheat, textiles and wines etc, do not go into federation account , totality of which accounted for the alleged unremitted N62.2billion,” he said.
“Similar explanations were offered by the Customs CG on queries two and three , which made a member of the committee, Senator Babangida Hussaini (Jigawa North West), to wonder why Customs allowed the queries to get to the level of committee’s investigation.
“I was in the civil service just like the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ibrahim Dankwabo (Gombe North), before venturing into politics. Queries one, two and three that you have responded to, supposed to have been trashed out at reconciliation level with the auditors and not allowed to get to this stage “, he said
The Customs boss reminded the committee members that the years under review , were periods when the Senate and Customs had frosty relationships .