FG rakes in N2.4bn from infrastructure concessions within eight months

February 4, 2021 9:25 pm

The federal government says it generated N2.4 billion from its special concession account (SCA), through the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) between May 2020 and January 2021.

This was said in a recent statement signed by Manji Yarling, acting head of media and publicity at ICRC.

In a circular issued by the office of the accountant general of the federation (OAGF) on November 7, 2018, Muhammadu Buhari directed all revenues from public-private partnerships (PPP) be brought into a dedicated treasury single account (TSA) for full accountability.

Through this, a SCA was opened with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“This is to notify the investing public that the special concession account (SCA) has become operational and has within a few months of its operation, yielded the sum of N2,400,689,340.00 which has duly reflected in the special concession account (SCA) with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),” ICRC said.

Chidi Izuwah, director-general of ICRC, said the objective of SCA is to streamline the receipt of all PPP payments in Nigeria for transparency, accountability and probity.

Izuwah said some of the benefits of SCA include: effective monitoring of revenue accruing to the federal government from PPP projects; assisting the federal government in economic planning, national budgeting and redistribution of income/revenue allocation.

It also supports the federal government’s economic recovery and growth plan (ERGP) initiative on infrastructure provision, thereby providing information to policy and decision makers.

“Presently, the revenue accruing to federal government via concession and PPP arrangements is not known and this may lead to abuse and leakages by ministries departments & agencies (MDAs) and concessionaires,” he said.

As a result, Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and national planning, said all MDAs/concessionaries should remit all monies accruing from PPP agreements, with an exception of proceeds from asset sale and liquidation, into SCA.