Reps Issue MDAs Final Warning To Appear Before Committee

The House of Representatives has issued a final warning to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government who failed to appear for probe.

Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, the chairman Ad hoc committee probing job racketeering and mismanagement of Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS), gave the warning at its resumed sitting in Abuja on Wednesday.

This is against the backdrop of over 200 MDAs that had failed to honour the committee’s invitation in spite of publication in newspapers.

According to him, it is the Nigerian people that are summoning the MDAs, we are representative of the people and the MDAs must honour our invitation.

Gagdi said any MDAs who failed to appear before the committee winds up its investigation should have itself to be blamed should the report of the committee indicted such MDAs.

The lawmaker said, “We have made two different publications in two different national dailies inviting 200 agencies to appear before this committee.

“The agencies have no excuses not to appear before this committee because they have a budget for newspaper publication and they are using it.

“Our Daily Trust publication and the Nation Newspaper of today will serve as a final communication and we are going to abide by this.”

He said the newspaper publications remained one of the mediums of communication that the National Assembly should use to reach out to MDAs.

He added that with such a medium of communication, no MDAs would have an excuse to say they have not seen the message.

He threatened to use information received from the MDAs for its investigation and the agency should have themselves to be blamed.

He added that the MDAs would be accountable if they refused to appear before the committee to submit its final report.

He said there was a need for employment to reflect the Federal Character, adding that the committee’s aim was to ensure that employment was not done in secrecy.

This according to him was to ensure that Nigeria citizens who had no godfathers should have the opportunity to be employed in any MDAs.