Senate summons Emefiele, Ali, Kyari, others over unaudited accounts

The Senate on Tuesday summoned heads and chief executives of Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) to appear before it over their failure to submit the audited accounts of their various MDAs to the National Assembly as required by law.

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Prominent among those summoned by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts are the Governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele, Comptroller General, Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hamid Ali (rtd) and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari.

Also mandated to appear before the Senate committee on Thursday are heads of the Debt Management Office, Pension Transition Administration Directorate (PTAD), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), National Bureau of Statistics, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the office of the head of civil service of the federation.

These revenue generating agencies whose heads were represented at the hearing held by the Senate committee were summoned to appear before probe committee empanelled by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts following receipt of allegation of non – submission of audited accounts and other sundry allegations from the office of the auditor general of the federation. 

Chairman of the committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide (Edo South), who issued the summons, said the agencies were summoned to “answer queries against their organisations and against their persons; to answer queries that have been directed at you”.

He told representatives of the heads of agencies that the committee will not interface with them, but their bosses who have questions to answer.

“We have report for 2015 sent to the National Assembly by the auditor general of the federation about two years ago. But, we have not been able to address the report due to some exigencies.

“Reports for 2016 to 2019 have not been submitted because almost all of the government owned enterprises failed to submit their audited accounts to the office of the auditor general. And most of the heads of these agencies even do not reply correspondences sent to them on this issue,” the Senate committee chairman stated..

Sen. Urhoghide said the Senate will not hesitate to invoke every extant law related to public finance in making the agencies comply with the rules

“We are not going to relate with them by proxy. They are invited to explain their parts on queries raised by the auditor general of the federation.

“If your agency has spent money, you are going to explain how you spent it. As far as I head this committee, there is no room for compromise. You are going to account for every kobo.

“By the time we clear all issues related to the 2015 accounts, agencies that have no issue will be given clearance certificates,” he added.

The Senate committee chairman urged the agencies to take the audit exercise serious as the committee will be thorough in handling all allegations.

He asked the representatives to inform their bosses that there is nothing to fear as the exercise is not to witch- hunt and solicited the cooperation of the agencies with the committee.