The House of Representatives on Wednesday demanded from the Accountant-General of the federation AGF Mr Ahmed Idris the details of all the funds donated by the Federal Government of Nigeria to the states of the federation, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control NCDC and the relevant ministriestackling the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts. Hon.Oluwole Oke issued the directive to the AGF at a meeting convened by the Committee to ascertain the amount of public funds so far expended by the government to fight the ravaging pandemic.
The Committee had queried the AGF on the total amount so far released by the federal government to the states, the NCDC, the Ministry of Health and other agencies of government in the fore-front of the fight against the disease.
Oke further asked the AGF to provide the details of how much funds he had transferred to the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 PTF and to provide the details of N22.1 billion so far donated by public spirited individuals and organizations to the government.
The AGF however told the lawmakers that the federal government opened a special account at the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN where the donations were lodged. He added that the CBN will later provide the documents requested.
He said, “there was a special account we opened with the CBN and that was what we borrowed from to meet the needs of this emergency”.
He also told the lawmaker that there was a total donation of N139,439,544.38 received by the federal government from the donations by the 109 Senators and 360 members of the House adding that another N300 million came from a philanthropist from Kano State.
The Committee Chairman and members however insisted that the details of the donations be made available to the members at the next sitting date on Monday June 15,2020.
Moreover, Oke also instructed the Clerk to the Committee to write a letter to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN Mr Godwin Emefiele demanding all the details of all the lodgements and disbursement of these funds by the government.