The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA) generated N490million as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 11 months and spent N367million without approval of the National Assembly.
This was revealed by members of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) when top management of the agency led by the Director General, Lawrence Dim appeared for budget defence.
The IGR, according to the committee chaired by Senator Tayo Alasoadura (APC, Ondo) was generated between January and November this year.
The senators said out of the N490m, the agency remitted only N122.6m to the Federation Account and spent the rest without budgetary provision.
A member of the committee, Senator Baba Kaka Garbai (APC, Borno) said the agency violated the country’s law by spending the money without approval of the National Assembly.
“You must have the approval of the National Assembly before spending the IGR. What you have done is an infraction of the law that provides that no money is spent without being appropriated for,” he said.
Committee chairman, Alasoadura demanded for the details of how the IGR was spent. “In preparing this, there is no key to show why 25 per cent is remitted and you did not show the balance. What did you do with the balance because it is not captured in the budget?
“I know what the law says but in preparing your budget, you should be explicit about why you remit only 25 per cent of your IGR. Where is the balance? Did we appropriate that money? We didn’t appropriate the money,” he said.
Responding, the DG said the law provides for the agency to spend 75 percent of the revenue for running of it day to day activities. He pledged to produce the details of how the IGR was spent.
