Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government who
failed to respond to audit queries issued by the Office of the Auditor General
for the Federation (OAGF) risk zero allocation.
The agencies which are about 100 failed to respond to
queries, a development that the Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts,
Mathew Uroghide in a point asked for sanctions against the erring agencies.
The sanction, Uroghide said on Wednesday, is the zero
allocation, noting that if the affected agencies cannot account for funds given
to them, there should be no need for further allocations.
The lawmaker lamented how heads of agencies of government
recklessly spend service-wide votes after which they are not prepared to give
accounts in line with the rules and traditions of accountability.
He warned all indicted agencies to be ready to face the
music for failing to appear before the panel after they were invited many
times.
The lawmaker said sections 88 and 89 of the constitution
empower the parliament to summon federal government agencies to account for
public funds they had spent.
He, however, lamented that the agencies had vehemently
refused to appear before his committee, saying the amounts of monies against
their names are staggering.
He urged the Senate President to issue a warrant of arrest
to compel the agencies to appear before the Public Accounts Committee.
In his reaction, the Senate President gave the affected
agencies one week’s ultimatum to appear before the committee or risk zero
allocation in the 2023 budget.
Lawan said, “Reading this list at plenary, it gives the
agencies the opportunity to now know if they were not aware before for those
that may claim ignorance.
“I am taking the opportunity to advise that, in the next one
week, the agencies mentioned here should appear before the committee. If there
is no communication whatsoever and no cogent and verifiable reasons are given,
we will slash the budget of the agencies.”
Some of the agencies are: the Office of the Accountant
General of the Federation, Ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance,
Transportation, Health, Works and Housing, Information and Culture, Mines and
Steal Development, Police Affairs, Defence, Youths and Sports, Petroleum and
Aviation.
Others are the State House, Budget Office, Presidential
Flee, Nigerian Army, Navy, Airforce, NAFDAC, Civil Defence, Presidential
Amnesty Programme, FERMA, NEMA, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON),
Debt Management Office, INEC, North East Development Commission (NEDC),
Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS),
Dept Management Office, National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA),
National Examination Council (NECO), among others.
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