By Linus Aleke, Abuja
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Account has ordered the Federal Fire Service to refund the sum of N1.484bn within seven days to the coffers of the Federal Government being the intervention funds it received for the COVID-19 pandemic, which it failed to account for.
Chairman of the Committee Hon. Bamidele Salam issued the directive when the Service failed again to honour its invitation to appear and explain how it expended the funds.
Deputy Chairman of the committee, Jeremiah Umar, had moved a motion for the refund of the amount saying that that other agencies have appeared before the committee, and the investigation is ongoing, stressing that there is no reason why the Fire Service will ignore the committee’s invitation.
The lawmaker noted that since the Service could not appear to explain what the money was spent for, it should be refunded to the coffers of the federation.
While ruling on the motion, Salam stressed that the Fire Service must make the refund of the sum of N1.484bn collected as COVID-19 intervention fund between 2020 and 2021, and submit evidence of the refund within Seven days while the other affected agencies would be invited once for the last chance to make an appearance.
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This came as the committee issued fresh invitations to some other defaulting Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs), 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.
The affected MDAs are the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security – N50bn, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation- N33bn, the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, through the National Centre for Women Development -N625m, the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) -N25bn, and the Federal Ministry of Health- N10bn.
The Chairman of the Committee, Salam said the Federal Fire Service had snubbed the Committee’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.
According to him, “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 seven 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 noted that the committee would afford the National Centre for Disease Control (N5bn), Ministry of Agriculture (N63.8bn), Ministry of Women Affairs through the Centre for Women Development (N1.25bn), Ministry of Health (N53bn), and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (N33bn) another opportunity to present before the committee regarding the allocation of COVID-19 funds.
“This Committee has a lot of assignments before it. The COVID-19 probe is just one, we have to move to other assignments,” he concluded.
