Imported User:
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday queried the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) over the diversion of over N2.5 billion accrued to the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) from the signature bonuses
The Solomon Adeola-led Public Account Committee also raised questions about an audit examination carried out by the Auditor General of the Federation on the statement of consolidated revenue fund for 2006 which revealed shortfall in revenue collection worth N81,904,469,177.27 on eight heads of recurrent revenue.
PAC raised questions on the N94 billion fund accrued to Ecological account. The committee chairman ordered the submission of the mandates as well as inflow and outflow statements for year 2006 within four days.
Amongst others, the Auditor General’s report queried the utilisation of multi-million naira grants and donations by several international agencies to many federal ministries, extra-ministerial departments and agencies for implementation of specific programmes.
The Lower House Committee on Public Accounts had queried the propriety of the diversion of public funds without following due process and recourse to the Minister of Finance.
Adeola cited the unilateral diversion of N250 million for registration of Galaxy Backbone and additional sum of N625 million for operational activities. Another N593 million was deducted from N2.5 trillion fund domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
He noted that the management of PTDF “used it to finance departments of government for outsourcing programme, the detail of the outsourcing programmes was not in the books. From what we heard, and from very reliable source, the signature bonus account is meant for who?
“I agree with the Auditor General that there are a lot of problems in the Petroleum Trust Development Fund and the account as reported by the Auditor General has be shrewded in secrecy and that particular account is not made known to us.”
To this extent, the Committee has summoned management of the 22 agencies as well as the Debt Management Office (DMO) to explain how the monies were sourced and spent.
