The Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC), on Tuesday, berated the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and 12 other MDAs for what it called their persistent refusal to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 report of the Office of Auditor-General of the Federation (OAuGF).
Expressing the displeasure of the Senate to journalists, chairman of the committee, Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu (SDP, Nasarawa West), said since the heads of the affected ministries, departments and agencies of government (MDAs) refused to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 audit report after several opportunities offered them to do so, any agency that refuses to honour invitation to defend its queries going forward will have its queries sustained and reported to the Senate at plenary by the committee.
He added that the attitude of the affected agencies in responding to queries against them in the 2019 audit report was frustrating and detrimental to aspirations and goals of President Bola Tinubu-led federal government.
According to him, apart from NNPCL, FIRS and the Police, other heads of agencies involved in the habit of not honouring thr legislative committee’s invitations to respond to queries against them were 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 and Investment.
Other MDAs indicted included FCT Internal Revenue Service, Nigeria Immigration Service, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Nigeria Communications Satellite Limited, among others.
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 Secretariat.
“Besides the demand for submission of written responses to audit queries, part of the Committee’s rules of engagement requires 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 timely discharge its constitutional and legislative function is being affected by the evasive and negative actions of some CEOs or accounting officers of the concerned MDAs.
“The Committee is very displeased with the attitude of foot-dragging by agencies who are by law, expected to respond to parliamentary invitations and account for their actions.
“The Committee has, over time, extended invitations to those agencies, providing them ample opportunities to defend their queries but for reasons best known to them, these agencies have chosen to disregard invitations.
“It is on this note that we as a Committee has resolved that going forward, the Senate Public Accounts Committee will go ahead to consider their audit queries as contained in the Auditor-General Annual’s Report and any MDA that henceforth fails to honour invitations to respond and present its defense, the Committee will adopt the position of the Auditor.
“Also, this resolution would be added to our rules of engagement if MDAs fail to improve on their attendance to our invitations.”
The SPAC chairman, however, stated that the “Committee is not in doubt of the commitment of the present administration under the stewardship of His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make Nigeria better but with the attitude of the aforementioned Chief Executives, that will not be achievable unless and until we all do the needful.”
