The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has agreed to increase its remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) account by N300million within the next one week in order to reduce the deficit in the proposed 2021 budget.
The decision was taken yesterday at the end of a 5-day interactive session on the 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) organised by the Joint Senate Committee on Finance on National Planning at the national assembly complex in Abuja.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Solomon Adeola (APC, Lagos West) after listening to the director-general of SEC, Lamido Yuguda, on the Commission’s revenue generations and projections, said “on the issue of the revenue to be paid to the Consolidated Revenue Fund account, I will implore the DG, to within today and Thursday next week, remit at least N300million to the coffers of the revenue fund.”
Yuguda had told the senate Joint committee that SEC generated a total revenue of N8.358billion in 2019 while it was expecting only N5.478billion in 2020 with a projection of N8.3billion in 2021 fiscal year.
For his part, Senator Gabriel Suswam, however, queried SEC’s projection of N8.3billion for 2021 as revenue while its expenditure for the same year is N14.4billion with a deficit of N6.1billion.
“You said you are top heavy. Now there are lots of young men who are on the streets, who are qualified and ready to work. The salary of just one person from the top-heavy management staff that you have can pay five young people who have the qualifications and capacity to do the job.
“When you do that instead of generating N8billion and incurring deficit of N6.1billion, it is as good as your organisation does not exist,” Suswam said.
Meanwhile, Senator Adeola has urged SEC not to pay less than N1billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund account in 2021 even as he told the Commission to reduce its wage bill by working on its top heavy management.
“You have a staff strength of 600 and a wage bill of N10.3billion annually, amounting to N15.7million per person. You are indeed top heavy. You have to work on this,” the committee chairman said.
