The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday summoned the Author General of the Federation, AuGF, Mr Anthony Anyine and the President of the Association of National Accountants of Nigerian, ANAN, over the infractions uncovered in the audited financial accounts of the Ogun Osun River Basin Authority, OORBA.
The Committee banded down the order in Abuja when the Management of the Agency led by its Managing Director, Engr Olufemi Odumosun appeared before it at the resumed hearing of the probe of over 300 Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs over non redition of financial Accounts to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation from 2014 till.
The Chairman of the Committee Hon Wole Oke ruled that the duo should appear before the committee by 11 00 am today failure which the Committee would issue a warrant of arrest against them for the Inspector General of Police to produce them before the Parliament.
Engr Odumosu who appeared before the Committee two weeks ago was directed to come back to show the evidence of redition of the Agency’s Accounts to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation when it was discovered that the 2015 audited account submitted in 2017 was not stamped to authenticate it’s submission
However, Odumosu appeared before the Committee with another copy of the 2015 signed and stamped in 2020 by the same office of the Auditor General of the Federation, saying that he went back to the office to perfect the process since there clear evidence that the financial account for the period was actually submitted to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation.
Irked by this development, members raised the alarm as to why the OORDA boss went behind the door to stamp a financial account submitted since 2017 in 2020, about four years after.
Consequently, the Committee took up the representatives of the Auditor General of the Federation and the Accountant General of the Federation respectively over the authenticity of the claim and the two documents now because the Committee
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon Oke specifically demanded that the OORBD boss should produce a copy of the letter written to office of the Auditor General of the Federation requesting that the 2015 audited financial account earlier submitted in 2017 should be signed and stamped in 2020.
However, when Odumosu could not produce any, the Committee expressed deep concern over the development which was described as mystry and a gross violation of the the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended.
The Committee also dismissed the attempts by the Director of Finance of the Agency to defend the action of the MD in getting the document stamped afresh which prompted the Committee to summon the President of ANAN over what it described as unprofessional practice of the Director
Hon Oke said that the OORDA boss should have allowed the office of the Auditor General of the Federation to come before the Committee to show its record whether or not there was redition as earlier submitted by the Agency two weeks rather than altering a document before the Parliament.
“This shocking, how can you go out of your way to go and aulter a document already before the Parliament? This Committee will not allow that, you can not be cog in the wheel of this investigation, simple thing for you is to wait for the Auditor General of the Federation to check their records, you appeared before the Committee on oath, now see what is happening”, Oke lamented.
Consequently, both the Auditor General of the Federation and the President of ANAN were summoned to shed more light on the development.
In a related development, the Committee summoned the J K Randle Audit firm over the late redition of the audited financial accounts of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, NTDC, to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation as required by law
