House of Representatives has directed the Federal Fire Service to refund the N1.484 billion COVID-19 intervention fund it got but could not account for, to federal government coffers within seven days.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House chaired by Hon Bamidele Salam issued the directive when the Service again failed to honour its invitation to appear and explain how it spent the funds.
The committee‘s deputy chairman, Hon Jeremiah Umar moved a motion for the refund of the money, stressing that: „So many other agencies have appeared before this Committee, and the investigation is ongoing. I don‘t see any reason why the Fire Service will ignore a committee like this“.
Umar stated that since the Service could not appear to explain what the money was spent for, it should refund it to the coffers of the federation.
Ruling on the motion, Hon Salam emphasised that the Fire Service must make the refund of the sum of N1.484 billion it collected as COVID-19 intervention fund in 2020/2021, and submit evidence of the refund within seven days.
The committee also issued fresh invitations to some other defaulting ministries, departments and agencies to appear and explain various queries standing against them from the office of the auditor-general of the federation on several billions of naira allocated to them during COVID-19 as intervention funds.
Those affected are; Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security -N50. 5 billion, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation- N33 billion, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, through the National Centre for Women Development-N625 million, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) -N25 billion, and the Federal Ministry of Health- N10 billion.
The chairman of the committee lamented that the Federal Fire Service had snubbed the panel‘s summons three different times in a row, while the other affected MDAs did the same twice each, saying that the latter group have within one week to appear, or face sanctions.
“A public officer who fails to respond to the Auditor-General‘s query satisfactorily within 21 days for failure to collect Government Revenue due shall be surcharged and be transferred to another schedule.
“Where an officer fails to give a satisfactory reply to an audit query within 7 days for his failure to account for government revenue, such officer shall be surcharged for the full amount involved and such officers handed over to either the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC),“ he added.
