By Tunde Opalana
The Defence Headquarters, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON), and Budget Office of the Federation, among others boycotted investigative hearing organised by Senate Public Account Committee (SPAC) on utilization of Service Wide Votes.
The fourteen MDAs scheduled to appear before the Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide on Tuesday failed to turn up.
They collectively collected N857 billion from the Service Wide Votes as it was learnt that some agencies collected from the votes fund that is even bigger than their annual budget.
The Committee is probing into utilization of the Service Wide Votes between 2017 to 2021 which is about N5 trillion, as over 200 agencies are expected to defend the utilization of the fund secretly collected without involving the National Assembly Committees mandated by the Constitution to oversight them.
Lamenting attitude of the agencies that have ignored the Committee, the chairman said that there is problem of accountability among the government agencies in the country which is against the provision of the constitution.
He said the affected agencies should have respect for the rule of law and come and give account of the money collected from Service Wide Votes without involving the National Assembly Committee mandated to oversight them.
The Chairman said: “I don’t known the audacity they have to choose not to appear before the National Assembly Committee.
“We are going ruthlessly against all of them, we are going to issue warrant of arrest against any agency which fails to honour the invitation.”
According to the record, Budget Office Collected – N68bn, Refugee Commission – N10.2bn, Defence – N579bn, AMCON- N8.13bn, Civil Defence – N4.9bn, Foreign Affairs – N96.6bn, Military- N66.8bn, SGF- N23.9bn and NEMA – N2.3bn, collected from Service Wide Votes between 2017 and 2021, Airforce – N14bn.
Meanwhile, the Public Complaint Commission on Tuesday failed to present letter of request for the collection of N1.7bn from Service Wide Votes between 2017 and 2021 to the Senate Panel.
At the beginning of the investigative hearing, the Chairman of the Committee had told the PCC team the total amount of fund collected from SWV and requested Chief Commissioner, Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf to present the letter requesting for the Service Wide Votes.
But, Chief Commissioner failed to present letter of request from the Service Wide Votes.
“I don’t have the letters requesting for the Service Wide Votes,” he said.
However, there was a mild drama as the Chairman of Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges who oversight the Public Complaint Commission said that he was unaware that N852 million was collected from Service Wide Votes without his knowledge.
The Chief Commissioner however vowed to look for letters of the request and present before the panel on November 1.
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