Senate for the first time since 1999 considered and approved the report of its Committee on Public Accounts as 59 agencies are billed to refund over N300 billion to the national purse.
Leading among erring agencies are Nigerian Port Authority (NPA)- N68.87bn; Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE)- N8.84bn; National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) – N4.53bn; Ministry of Niger Delta- N1.77bn; Federal Mortgage Bank – N369 million; Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB)- N995 million; Ministry of Petroleum Resources – N821.9 million; National Agency for Drugs Administration and Controls (NAFDAC)- N1.88bn.
With the pasage of the report, this will be the first time that the audited report of Auditor General of the Federation will indict government agencies since 1999.
The report had been submitted for consideration few weeks ago by the Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide, but the Senate unanimously asked the panel to summarize the report before consideration.
Speaking on the report, Senator representing Sokoto East Senatorial District, Ibrahim Gobir, said his calculation of the total misappropriated funds by the federal agencies, amounted to over N300bn.
Gobir said, “After going through the whole report, I discovered that there is going to be over N300bn to be recovered.
“My concern is whether these agencies can recover these monies or whether we have to send the report to the EFCC.”
Ruling on the issue, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said the agencies would be given 60 days to refund the monies failure which the National Assembly could involve the anti graft agencies.
Lawan said, “My advice will be, let us monitor the implementation. After the 60 days of grace, then we can take the next appropriate action
” If we go to the EFCC, it is okay but at this point, I think we should give them the opportunity.
“What is important is to ensure that we send these resolutions to the appropriate quarters for immediate implementation.”
After exhaustive debate on the report, the Senate considered the report clause by clause and mandated then indicted agencies to comply with Senate resolution within 60 days.
The NHIS, according to the AugF, invested N122,893,876,023 in fixed deposit account without the approval of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
The report noted that the interest yield amounting to N3,716,805, 388.00 realised by the agency was not remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The Senate panel in its recommendations, upheld the AugF report that the agency should refund N3,716,805, 388.00 to the CRF within 60 days.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman said that the Committee observed the widespread award of contracts to incompetent contractors, non release of documents to the Auditor, contract splitting to circumvent approved threshold and avoidance of procurement process and rampant contravention of the approved N200,000 threshold for Cash Advances by MDAs due largely to prevailing market realities.
The Chairman raised concern over irregular remittance of IGR by revenue generating agencies and other agencies in the Financial and Economic Sector as required by law and high incidences of non-remittance of deducted taxes (VAT, WHT, etc) to government coffers by MDAs.
Meanwhile, for the first time, the National Assembly clerk , Amos Ojo appeared before the Senate on Public Accounts Committee as all Auditor General queries against Nigeria’s Parliament were vacated.
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