The Senate Public Accounts Committee has officially absolved the Nigeria Customs Service of a ₦62.2 billion under-remittance allegation, bringing closure to a controversy that had lingered since the 2019 audit report of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.
The committee’s clearance followed a rigorous investigative session where the Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, defended the agency’s records and dismissed the claim as a result of revenue misclassification.
The audit query had alleged that while Customs generated ₦691.242 billion in 2017, only ₦629.23 billion was remitted to the Federation Account, leaving a shortfall of ₦62.2 billion.
Adeniyi, during the investigative session yesterday, said the figure was wrongly computed due to the inclusion of levies not payable into the Federation Account, including charges on local production of commodities such as wheat, textiles, and wines.
He argued that the so-called shortfall did not exist, insisting that the difference arose from accounting classifications rather than unremitted funds.
“The under-remittance of N62.2 billion levelled against Customs in the 2019 audit report was wrongly arrived at through misclassification of levies collected,” Adeniyi stated.
“While most of the levies are to be collected and remitted into the federation account, others like the ones on local production of wheat, textiles and wines, etc do not go into the federation account, the totality of which accounted for the alleged unremitted N62.2 billion,” the Customs boss added.
Following his explanation and supporting clarifications on other queries, members of the committee agreed that the allegation had been sufficiently addressed, with some lawmakers noting that the matter should have been resolved at the audit stage rather than escalating to a Senate investigation.