•Nigerian Senate
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Police Force yesterday came under scathing criticism for persistently failing to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 report of the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF).
Twelve Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were also reprimanded yesterday by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, reports The Nation.
Chairman of the Committee Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu (SDP – Nasarawa West), told reporters in Abuja that his panel would sustain such queries and equally report the affected agencies to the Senate in plenary since their heads refused to respond to queries raised against them after several opportunities.
He added that the attitude of the affected public agencies on persistent refusal to respond to queries against them in the audit report was both frustrating and detrimental to the aspirations and goals of the President Bola Tinubu-led federal government.
He said that apart from the NNPCL, FIRS and the Nigeria Police Force, other heads of agencies involved in the habit of not honouring committee’s invitation to respond to queries against them are the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment.
Others are the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Internal Revenue Service, Nigeria Immigration Service, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Nigeria Communications Satellite Limited, etc.
Wadada said: “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.
“Besides the demand for submission of written responses to audit queries, part of the Committee’s rules of engagement require that Accounting Officers attend the Committee’s Public Hearing 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 desire of the Public Accounts Committee to timeously discharge its constitutional and legislative function is being frustrated by the evasive and negative actions of some CEOs or accounting officers of the concerned MDAs.”
