The Senate has rejected the two years financial transactions of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA).
LEADERSHIP reports that the head of the agency, Dr Bashir Jamoh and his head of account and finance could not defend the financial report of the agency in two years.
This is just as the Senate committee on Finance has expressed dissatisfaction with the series of infractions and differences in the generated and remittances of NIMASA, and directed the agency to return on another date with a more explainable report.
The committee had invited the agency to present its generated revenues and remittances to the federation account between 2020 and 2022.
In their presentation, it was discovered that NIMASA has in the years under review made remittances that were far less than what it actually generated.
Explanations by the NIMASA director general, Bashir Jamoh were said not to be satisfactory as the committee further requested the agency to provide a projection of its Internal Generated Revenue for the 2023 year ending December.
The NIMASA boss pointedly told senators he could not provide such projection, insisting it was not part of the details he had prepared for presentation.
The committee chairman consequently directed NIMASA to furnish the committee with it’s audited management report and reconcile with the office of the Auditor General of the federation stressing that “what we have here is not what we expect ,the discrepancies in remittances and revenues generated are too huge.
“You have to come back on another day ,go through your books and let’s know exactly what we can understand. Also come with your estimated revenue and audited accounts from 2020 to 2022. We are not getting the kind of returns in terms of what we expect your agency to generate and honestly we are not fully satisfied.”
The committee also sent back agencies whose heads were represented.
According to the chairman of the committee Senator Sani Musa,” I will not listen to any agency that sent a representative. That practice must stop and under my tenure it has to stop. We are here in preparation of the budget and we will only attend to agencies that are represented by their heads. We were voted to do our job and we must do it properly.
“We are here to see the performance of the agencies , we made it clear that they must honour their invitations personally.
Other agencies attended to include the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA and the Federal Road Safety Corps.
