By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
Military authorities and federal agencies which allegedly benefitted from the alleged secret withdrawal of N875bn from the Service Wide Vote did not appear before the Senate Public Account Committee, currently probing the matter, on Tuesday.

Some of the affected 14 institutions and agencies were the Defence Headquarters, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Assets Management Company of Nigeria, and Budget Office among others.

The Senate Panel led by Senator Mathew Urhoghide was probing the collection of N857bn from the SWV that some agencies collected from the fund, some of which were even bigger than their annual budget.

The Committee is investigating the utilization of the SWV between 2017 and 2021 which is about N5trn.

No fewer than 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.

Urhoghide lamented the attitude of the agencies that ignored the Committee.

The chairman alleged that there was a 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 an 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 know the audacity they have to choose not to appear before the National Assembly Committee.

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“We are going ruthlessly against all of them, we are going to issue a warrant of arrest against any agency which fails to honour the invitation.”

According to the record, the Budget Office Collected – N68bn, Refugee Commission – N10.2bn; Defence Headquarters – N579bn; AMCON- N8.13bn; and the Civil Defence – N4.9bn.

Others are, Foreign Affairs – N96.6bn; Military – N66.8bn; SGF- N23.9bn and National Emergency Management Agency – N2.3bn collected from Service Wide Votes between 2017 and 2021, Nigerian Air Force- N14bn.

Meanwhile, the Public Complaint Commission on Tuesday failed to present a letter of request for the collection of N1.7bn from Service Wide Votes between 2017 to 2021 to the Senate Panel.

At the beginning of the investigative hearing, the Chairman of the Committee told the PCC team the total amount of funds collected from SWV and requested, Chief Commissioner, Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf to present the letter requesting the Service Wide Votes.

However, Chief Commissioner failed to present a letter of request from the Service Wide Votes.

“I don’t have the letters requesting for the Service Wide Votes,” he said.

There was a mild drama as the Chairman of the Senate Committee said that he was unaware that N852m from Service Wide Votes was without his knowledge.

The Chief Commissioner however vowed to look for letters of the request and present them before the Panel on November 1.