N8 Billion Has Been Refunded to Government Treasury – Dino Melaye

A Member of the Nigerian Senate has said that about N8 billion has been refunded to the treasury of government and more monies will be refunded.

“As I speak to you, about eight billion Naira has been refunded back to the treasury of government and I know more monies will be refunded”, he said on Channels Televisions Sunrise Daily.

Senator Dino Melaye said that “basically, I want to say that when I raised this motion on the floor of the Senate, I got a lot of insults on social media, everywhere, that I was blabbing and there was no truth in the content of my presentation.”

“But I tweeted that the truth has no colour and every lie has an expiry date.”

“I want to thank God that I have been vindicated by the public hearing where my revelations on the floor of the Senate have given room for confession even by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Governor, Godwin Emefiele”, he said.

While answering a question on how he got an insight on the alleged illegality and exorbitant commission charged for the deployment of Remita, the Senator said that “I will want to say that the Treasury Single Account (TSA) is a very laudable program which is going to help blocking leakages and I support it.”

“My prayer on the day I moved the motion was to commend President Muhammadu Buhari for an implementation of the TSA, but I was challenging that the instrumentality of the TSA is being used by some individuals to undercut Nigerians and our national patrimony”, he asserted.

Senator Melaye had argued that the use of Remita was a violation of Section 162(1) of the constitution, which stated that “the federation shall maintain a special account to be called the federation account into which all revenues collected by the government of the federation except the proceeds from the personal income tax of the personnel of the Armed Forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the ministry or department of government charged with foreign affairs and the residents of the FCT, Abuja”.

He further stated that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) could only appoint a registered bank as an agent for collecting and disbursing the funds.

The Senator said that since Remita was not a bank, its appointment as a collection agent was in violation of the CBN Act and the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2007.

Giving his view on the amount he would recommend for private bodies for doing government jobs, Senator Melaye said that “the Senate is geared towards blocking leakages and also negotiating to the barest minimum, the advantage of Nigerians and the national treasury.”

“We are not saying that private companies engaged in almost all platforms used by the government shouldn’t be paid, but what we are saying is that nothing outrageous should be paid at the detriment of our national purse”, he said.

Reacting to the “Anti-Social Media Bill, the Senator also cleared the ground on the Social Media Bill by saying “there is nothing called the social media bill and there is no such bill before the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; at least the 8th Senate.

“I want to assure you that the 8th Senate were operating on the three cardinal objective of the agenda (the first, second and third agenda focuses on the people)”, he explained.