Senate on Tuesday began investigation of the Budget Office over illegal payment of N19 billion to four yet to be identified government agencies.
However, the Office failed to appear before the Senate Public Accounts Committee on the payment of N19 billion to four agencies through verbal directive by its Director General in 2015.
The Senate Panel hinged the investigation on the 2016 Auditor General’s Report which is currently being considered by Committee chaired by Senator Matthew Urhoghide.
The Budget Office was supposed to be number one on the list of the agencies expected to respond to the Auditor General’s query, but it failed to appear before the lawmakers.
The budget in a written response to the query, said, “the details of MDAs under reference have not been provided to enable us respond appropriately.
The Auditor in the 2016 report said, that “Four MDAs were paid the sum of N19 billion from the service wide vote without the approval of the Honorable Minister of Finance.
“Some of the payments were made on a purported verbal directive from the Director General.
“This act is against Financial Regulations 301 and 302 which state that “recurrent expenditure is paid from CRF and no expenditure may be incurred except on the authority of a warrant issued by the Minister of Finance.
“The Director General should provide evidence of approval from the Ministry of Finance for these expenditures or recover the sum of N19 billion from benefiting MDAs.”