The House of Representatives has resolved to investigate System Spec over revenue leakages and non–remittance of revenues generated through the remita platform.
The House, therefore, mandated the Committee on Public Accounts to investigate revenue leakages through the Remita Platform and non-compliance substantively with Standard Operating Procedures and other allied Service Level Agreements signed among Deposit Money Banks, Office of The Accountant General, Systemspec, Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) and the Central Bank of Nigeria and report back within six weeks for further legislative action.
The resolution of the followed the adoption of a motion moved at the plenary in Wednesday by Hon. Jeremiah Umar and Hon. Jafaru Gambo.
Moving the motion, Umar explained Remita is a software cum financial service platform owned by System-Specs which is a Private Company in charge of managing Government Revenues years.
The lawmaker said it has served as a gateway for the Treasury Single Account of the federal government since 2012, though fully adopted in 2015 and used in the collection of government revenues over the years.
Umar said: “Aware that over N8.7 trillion had been processed through the platform before the deployment of the software, the Nigerian government had over 15,000 Bank Accounts operated by Ministries, Departments and agencies (MDAs), the proliferation of accounts has moved from deposit money banks to Central Bank of Nigeria allowing MDAs to create multiple sub-accounts thereby negating the TSA Policy of the Federal Government.”
The lawmaker added that the TSA system has created a cashless economy, transparency and effective tracking of cash assets with attendant accountability, but added that it has not indeed fully blocked leakages and abuses by the proliferation of CBN Sub-Accounts.
Umar added that 1% of the funds collected is charged as commission for making use of the Remita platform and shared among the company who owns the Remita platform, Deposit Money Banks (processor) and Central Bank of Nigeria (License issuer) in the ratio of 50:40:10 respectively, describing it as alarming and unacceptable.
He expressed concern that despite the benefits and reasons for on-boarding the Remita Platform, the rate of revenue leakages was worrisome, apart from non-compliance substantively with Standard Operating Procedures and other allied Service Level Agreements signed by parties.
Umar stressed that if this scenario continues unabated, the government would continue to experience a revenue shortfall and this would prevent the government from meeting the rising demand for good governance and infrastructural development from citizens;
He expressed worry that a larger percentage of deposit money banks has formed the habit of delay in on-ward remittance or sweeping of revenues collected to Central Bank of Nigeria;