…….Top On List: NNPC, 17 Subsidiaries
Worried by the continued refusal of some Ministers, Heads of Ministries, Parastatals and Agencies, MDAs, of the federal Government to appear before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, over several audit queries raised against them over the years by the office of the Accountant General of the Federation, the Committee has resolved to drag the affected public officers and the MDAs to President Muhammodu Buhari with an immediate effect.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon Busayo Oluwole Oke(PDP-OSUN) disclosed this on Friday at the sitting of the Committee following the absence of the Managements of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Ltd, NNPC and all its 17 subsidiaries for the uptenth time on the nemerous audit queries against the Agencies over the years
In addition, Hon Oke said that the Committee had also resolved to further extract the queries raised against the defaulting MDAs from the Auditor General of the Federation Report covering the years under review and publish such in the National Dailies just for the Mr President and the general Public to see how billions of naira and in dollars of tax payers money were being wasted
Hon Oke who said that the Committee was tired of summoning the concerned Agencies and their heads said the Clerk of the Committee had been directed to compile the list of the defaulting MDAs and forward same with a covering letters to the Chief of Staff to President Buhari, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF and the Attorney General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice for judicial notice
Other defaulting MDAs according to the Committee are: National Insurance Commission, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Federal Ministry of Mines & Steel Development, Federal Ministry of Transportation, Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS, Federal Ministry of Health and a host of others.
The unanswered queries according to Hon Oke bothered on the following: ” abuse of fiscal Policies, non rendition of Audited Accounts, status inquiry, Service Wide Vote dated back to 2013 to date
According to him, ” the Committee decided to extract and publish such audit queries in the National Dalies for the public to see the truth for themselves, we are not the authors of the queries but the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, rather than to appear before the committee and speak to the facts, they will stay away and be issuing counter Press statements to blackmail the parliament
” The Committee is not out to witch-hunt any individual or any organization, for an instance the office of the Auditor General queried an Agency for spending a whopping sum of N45m within a week for a room is hotel in Abuja, we invited the Management of the Hotel, they appeared before the Committee, gave him us vital information and we invited the Management of the concerned Agency several times but had refused to show up for their defense till today
” We have many of such cases, what we we saying is that they should come and defend themselves and as a parliament we can not continue to wait for them, we are giving them the last chance to show up after we must have reported them to their employer, whose us the Mr President, published their names and the queries raised against them in the National Dailies, then , we will have no option that use our constitutional power to get them and be brought here to face the law
” But we believe that by reporting them to their employer, they will be forced to show up before ordering their arrest, no amount of blackmail will stop us from doing our jobs, enough is enough”.
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