By Nathaniel Zacchaeus
Heads of federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) have besieged the secretariat of the Senate Public Accounts Committee which is currently probing the N1.9trn Service Wide Vote collected by the MDAs from the consolidated revenue fund from 2017 to date.
The Senate had last week Wednesday threatened to record zero allocation to the 2023 Capital Budget of 100 MDAs until they appear before its Committee on Public Accounts to give explanations on the service-wide vote expenditure from 2017 to 2021.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, gave the threat on the floor of the Senate while ruling on a point of order raised by the Chairman of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide.
The Senator raised a point of order to draw the attention of his colleagues to the flagrant disregard of heads of federal MDAs for Senate invitations.
Investigations by ThisNigeria yesterday revealed that heads of federal ministries and agencies have been visiting the SPAC secretariat to produce documents regarding the expenditure of their share of the SWV.
A member of the Senate panel, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, told ThisNigeria that many of the MDAs started bombarding the SPAC secretariat last week.
The Senator said, “The heads of the affected federal government ministries have been going to the SPAC secretariat to see the clerk.
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“We thought they would wait until they would be summoned but it’s like they are not taking the Senate threat to order their warrant of arrest, lightly”
The SPAC Chairman had last week noted that the agencies’ heads who were public officers were disrespecting the Senate even though Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution gave the red power to summon them.
He said the Service-Wide Vote, is extra-budgetary spending made to fill shortfalls in capital and recurrent expenditures, which are not audited by the Auditor-General of the Federation and not known to various standing committees of the National Assembly.
He said the affected agencies were also those who refused to appear before the committee to answer queries slammed on them by the Auditor General of the Federation on alleged financial infractions.
Some of the MDAs are, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ministries of Interior, Transportation, Mines, and Solid Mineral Development, Information, Communication, Petroleum, Defence, Police Affairs, Sports, Works and Housing, and Women Affairs.
Others are the State House, Presidential Fleet, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Independent National Electoral Commission, North East Development Commission, Nigerian Intelligence Agency, and the Nigerian Air Force among others.
*As SPAC asks finance ministry to provide documents on missing N113m JAMB salary
Meanwhile, the panel yesterday gave 48 hours ultimatum to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance to provide sensitive documents on the disbursement of Service Wide Votes and missing N113m on salary adjustment for the Joint Admission Board Matriculation (JAMB), or risk a warrant of arrest by next week.
The Committee stated this during his panel’s investigative hearing yesterday.
The Panel had written a letter of appearance to the Ministry on October 20, 2022, and the letter was received by the Ministry on October 21, 2022, to also give details of release to all MDAs including the Police and Armed Forces.
Also, another letter was written to the Ministry on December 8, 2022, on the issue concerning missing N113m of salary augmentation for the Joint Admission Matriculation Board.
While the record from the office of Accountant General of the Federation, (AGF) revealed that the N113m was released to JAMB in May 2017 for salary augmentation.
In the invitation letter written to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry was invited to clarify the matter at stake at the Committee’s room on Tuesday which the Ministry officials failed to honour.
The representative of JAMB, Director of Finance and Account, M. Bello, during the panel’s investigative hearing, claimed that the N113m was not released to them arguing that if the money was released it will cut across the whole year.
According to the JAMB Director of Finance, it will cut across all MDAs using CONLESS, if there is a shortfall in May, it will spread to the whole year.
Not satisfied by the absence of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Senator Urhoghide gave the Permanent Secretary 48 hours to appear and provide the relevant documents to the Committee or face a warrant of arrest by next week.
He said they have to appear before the Committee by Thursday this week since JAMB had denied knowledge of the funds’ release.
He said, “We want to interface with them in your presence (Cash Management Office has to come before this Committee) this payment was used to clear salary adjustment of 2017.”
He added that failure of the Ministry Permanent Secretary to appear on Thursday will lead to a warrant of arrest by next week.
