EditorThe House of Representatives has hinted at its decision to issue arrest warrants to about 54 heads of ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government for allegedly refusing to answer audit queries.
The heads of MDAs affected by this include Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele; Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Melee Kyari; Sole Administrator of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Effiong Akwa; Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Elias Mbam, and 50 others.
This was disclosed by the Reps Committee on Public Accounts on Wednesday in its report which indicted heads of 54 MD
The audit reports by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation were for years 2014 to 2018.
A statement issued by the Committee Chairman, Oluwole Oke said that “all Chief Accounting Officers of the 54 government agencies listed on pages 4 to 6, that refused appearance to defend their positions during the public hearing without any written reason, prominent among them are CBN, NNPC, NDDC, RMAFC, etc., should be issued a warrant of arrest to compel their appearance to respond to the matter within a week in line with Section 89 (d) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended).”
In the report containing 30 recommendations, the committee recommended several serving and former managing directors, directors-general, directors of finance, and accounts/administration for prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) while asking various MDAs to make refunds for failing to account for funds.
“All those in office that were responsible should be disciplined and referred to the EFCC in line with Financial Regulation 3129 of 2009,” it said.
Prime Business Africa had earlier reported that the Senate approved a 2015 report of its committee on public accounts which charged 59 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government that have been asked to refund over N300 billion to the Federation Account.
The Senate report also indicted the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over its non remittance of N3.8trillion that was gotten from crude oil sales in 2015.
The Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) were also mandated by the report to go after government officials who diverts funds during the year.
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