Senate Berates NAIC Over Inconsistent Financial Record

By Isah Aliyu Chiroma

The Senate Committee on Finance has berated the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation over its inability to provide details of its finances from 2021, 2022, up to the third quarter of 2023.

At an interactive session on Monday in Abuja, members of the committee lamented the absence of receipts to prove NAIC expenditures from revenue claims.

The committee, led by Senator Sani Musa (APC, Niger South), also charged NAIC to provide detailed receipts of remittances said to have been made with the surplus revenue generated in 2023.

In a document submitted to the committee, the MD/CEO of NAIC, Folashade Joseph, while presenting the Corporation’s 2024 Revenue, Overhead and Capital Projections, told the panel that the agro-insurance outfit transferred N3, 847, 202, 032.03 to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federal government in 2023.

She, however, contradicted her submission by arguing that the organisation recorded “huge losses in 2022, hence, we were unable to remit for the year.”

Not impressed by her submissions, the lawmakers took turns to appraise NAIC’s performance for the fiscal year, wondering why the corporation’s fortunes continued to dwindle over three years.

Accordingly, the committee mandated the management of the organisation to furnish it with the corporation’s audited account covering 2021 and 2022, up to the third quarter of 2023.

This was as the committee Chairman called for a breakdown of NAIC finances, insisting that the panel was poised to “block all loopholes all in the account of MDAs.”

Musa said, “For a long time the accounts of MDAs have been run as personal property. We want to make a difference.

“We want to ensure that the right thing is done and that this government has what it wants to give Nigerians the dividends of democracy.”

The committee also interacted with the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Equipment Leasing Registration Authority, with the management of the Corporate Affairs Commission not sending representatives to the interactive session.