On consolidated revenue account

Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company among others, to pay all their revenues into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).The president gave the directive at the inauguration of the National Economic Council at the […]

Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company among others, to pay all their revenues into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
The president gave the directive at the inauguration of the National Economic Council at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on June 29, stressing that henceforth the agencies would be required to submit their budgets for appropriation to meet their annual expenditure needs after their revenues have been remitted to the Federation Account.
“All revenue generating agencies … shall comply with stipulated financial regulations and administrative instructions in their remittances into the Consolidated Revenue Fund,” the president was quoted as saying.
Based on the directive, agencies like the NNPC would no longer be allowed to withdraw funds that should have been remitted to the CRF to meet their expenses before remitting whatever balance them dim fit into the Federation Account. The situation before the presidential directive was such that it was difficult to even get an idea of just how much some of these agencies were generating annually.
Section 80 (1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended states that: “All revenues or other moneys raised or received by the Federation (not being revenues or other moneys payable under this Constitution or any Act of the National Assembly into any other public fund of the Federation established for a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.”
The president’s directive, which is a step in the right direction and is backed by the constitution, will definitely help plug the many leakages in Nigeria’s public finance system that most revenue generating federal agencies had exploited. 
Though there are also other extant laws and financial regulations backing the directive, they were observed more in the breach by successive administrations. The seven agencies by President Buhari are by no means the only establishments guilty of breaching these regulations, they are the worst culprits, hence the searchlight is beamed on them.
Before this directive, federal government revenues were collected in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner and deposited in different accounts with commercial banks by some scrupulous government officials who even collected interests on the deposits upfront.
Worse, still the funds were oftentimes withdrawn by the agencies indiscriminately without due process thereby encouraging corruption and leakages in the system.
This is why the NNPC for instance, reportedly spent billions on the hiring of aircraft without proper appropriation just the nation’s cash cow is yet to properly explain how about $20 billion allegedly disappeared from the corporation’s coffers. There are similar allegations against top government earning agencies.
The directive is a key step toward restoring transparency and accountability in public finance as what the agencies were engaged in was not only unlawful but also immoral.
The president’s effort to check the level of irregularities in the system and sanitise the management of the nation’s resources therefore deserves commendation.
But issuing the directive should been seen as just a first step. It is imperative for the president to go further by mustering the political will to enforce it because similar directives issued in the past by the then finance minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to ministries, agencies and departments (MDAs) to close all their accounts with commercial banks and deposit their monies with the CBN, were largely ignored most of the time.