The Senate on Tuesday launched an investigation on the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation over N978 billion received from Sevice Wide Votes, between 2017- 2021.
The N978 billion received from Service Wide Votes is made up of both capital and recurring expenditures that were distributed to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
According to The PUNCH, the investigation is coming less than one week after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission disclosed that the agency collected about N30bn from the former Accountant General of the Federation, Idris Ahmed, who is currently under investigation for N110bn fraud.
The chairman of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide, opened the investigative hearing by stating that some releases from Service Wide Votes have no authority to incur expenses, which led to the suspension of the Committee. He continued by saying that only memos had been provided to support the releases.
The Chairman, who was dissatisfied with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation’s submission, stated that the Office of Accountant General must explain the expenditures to the committee piecemeal in order for the committee to fully comprehend them because the figures are enormous and the response is unsatisfactory.
Uroghide said, ” From what I have seen, we may need time so that we can analyse the expenditure one by one, these figures are enormous and the response is not satisfactory.”
However, the committee was instructed to give the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation more time to address the issues raised by the lawmakers by Director of Fund, Sabo Mohammed.
He said, “It will take some time , we should do it systematically to save our time and your time , this is a matter of going back and do them one after the other.
“We have responded to some, we will still go back and separate our own from that of MDAs.
“We have found out that many of the figures may not be correct.”
As a result, the Chairman directed the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to gather the documents and present them on Thursday.
