The Senate Committee on Public Accounts on Tuesday express anger over the attitude of public officers who have failed to answer summons on audit queries.
Specifically, the lawmakers took a swipe at managers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Nigeria Police Force, NPF and 12 other MDAs for their persistent failure to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 report of the Auditor General of the Federation, AuGF.
The heads of agencies involved in the habit of not honouring the committee’s invitation to respond to queries against them are NNPC, FIRS, NPF, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation,
Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (former DPR) and Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment, according to the Chairman of the committee, Sen. Ahmed Wadada (SDP-Nasarawa West) in a statement in Abuja.
Others are the Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service, Nigeria Immigration Service, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Nigeria Communications Satellite Limited, etc.
Wadada said that going forward, any agency that refused to honour invitation to defend its queries would have its queries sustained and reported to the senate in plenary by the committee.
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His words: ”It is worthy to state that the committee commenced the consideration of the Audit Report in October 2023, with a view to presenting its report to the Plenary.
“However, some agencies have willfully failed to honour invitations to defend their written responses to the audit queries as submitted to the committee’s secretariat.
“Beside the demand for submission of written responses to audit queries, part of the committee’s rules of engagement requires that accounting officers attend its public hearing.
“This is to respond to questions arising from the analysis of their submissions which in turn, forms a basis for informed decision on the matter by the committee.
“The committee is very displeased with the attitude of foot dragging by agencies who are by law, expected to respond to parliamentary invitations and account for their actions.”
The Committee has over time, extended invitations to these agencies providing them ample opportunities to defend queries against them but for reasons best known to them, these agencies have chosen to disregard invitations.
“It is on this note that we as a Committee have resolved that going forward, the Senate Public Accounts Committee will go ahead to consider their audit queries as contained in the Auditor-General’s annual report and any MDA that henceforth fails to honour invitations to respond and present its defence, the committee will
adopt the position of the Auditor-General of the Federation,” he explained.
He also said the “committee is not in doubt of the Commitment of the present administration under the stewardship of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make Nigeria better but with the attitude of the aforementioned Chief Executives, that will not be achievable unless and until we all do the needful.”
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