REPS ORDER EFCC, ICPC TO RECOVER N3.2BN FROM EX-PERM SECS
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The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives on Monday urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to invite two former Permanent Secretaries in the Federal Ministry of Labour, Williams Alo and Yerima Tafa, for questioning over alleged financial mismanagement of N3.2bn while in office.
The committee, chaired by Bamidele Salam, who represents Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency in Osun State, expressed concern over the persistent disregard for its summons by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
It decried the growing trend of government bodies refusing to honour invitations to respond to audit queries issued by the Auditor-General for the Federation.
According to Salam, the committee has written to the ministry seven times, yet none of the invitations was honoured.
He added that the ministry also failed to provide the relevant documents required to clear them of the 32 audit queries raised in the 2020 audit report.
Salam stated that although the Auditor-General made specific recommendations, the committee decided to give the ministry an opportunity to defend itself. However, the Minister has consistently refused to appear before the committee.
He added that Williams Alo and Yerima Tafa, who were the Permanent Secretaries when the infractions occurred, should be held accountable, as they were the ministry’s accounting officers at the time.
The committee also gave the current Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Saliu Usman, 72 hours to appear before them to respond to the seven audit queries raised in the Auditor-General’s 2021 financial report or risk having the committee uphold the recommendations of the Auditor-General.
“Today, we expected to meet with the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, which has six major queries raised by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has seven major queries against it. The Federal Ministry of Women Affairs had five major queries, while the Federal Ministry of Transportation had five queries,” Salam said.
Speaking at the public hearing, Salam emphasised the need for Nigeria to plug revenue leakages and loopholes, stressing that an effective auditing system was crucial.
He said, “We have had several instances where civil society organisations and members of the public have criticised the National Assembly for not doing enough in terms of oversight and using our statutory powers to keep MDAs in check. These agencies must be accountable to ensure they deliver on the government’s intentions and justify the budget allocations they receive.
“The Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has been invited seven times in the past five months, but on each occasion, it has ignored the summons. The ministry has also refused to provide documents to address the audit queries against it.
“The Auditor-General’s report flagged an unaccounted allocation of N351m to the Geneva Labour Desk, despite the desk already receiving an appropriation from the National Assembly.”
Continuing, the Peoples Democratic Party lawmaker also noted that the Ministry was also queried for “The payment without evidence of execution of project amounting to N226m. There are also unretired cash advances amounting to N344m, and payment for consultancy service without execution of N7m and the abuse of cash advance policy and regulation to the tune of N238m.”
Others according to Salam included “Payment for non-existent job centres in three parts of the country for a total amount of N497m. There is also the payment for a non-executed contract in Kaduna for N144m and an unsubstantiated contract award for N67m, among others, totalling about N3.2bn.
The Permanent Secretaries of the Federal Ministries of Transportation, Women Affairs, and Humanitarian Services — Adeleye Ayodeji, Mariam Keshero, and Yakubu Adams Kofamata, respectively — were also given a 72-hour ultimatum to appear before the committee.
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