By Adedapo Adesanya
The Senate has called out the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), and 12 others for their persistent refusal to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 Audit report.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Mr Ahmed Aliyu, on Tuesday, slammed the management of these agencies and bodies, saying they refused to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 audit report after several opportunities offered to do so.
He stated that any agency that refuses to honour an invitation to defend its queries will have its questioning sustained and reported to the Senate plenary by the committee.
“It is worthy to state that the committee commenced the consideration of the Audit Report in October 2023 to present its report to the plenary,” Mr Aliyu said.
“However, some agencies have willfully failed to honour invitations to defend their written responses to the audit queries as submitted to the Committee Secretariat.
“Beside the demand for submission of written responses to audit queries, part of the committee’s rules of engagement requires that Accounting Officers attend the committee’s public hearing to respond to questions arising from the analysis of their submissions which in turn forms a basis for an informed decision on the matter by the committee.
“The desire of the Public Accounts Committee to timely discharge its constitutional and legislative function is being by the evasive and negative actions of some CEOs or accounting officers of the concerned MDAs.
“The Committee is very displeased with the attitude of foot-dragging by agencies who are by law, expected to respond to parliamentary invitations and account for their actions.
“The Committee has over time, extended invitations to those agencies providing them ample opportunities to defend their queries but for reasons best known to them, these agencies have chosen to disregard invitations.”
According to Mr Aliyu, the attitude of the affected public agencies on persistent refusal to respond to queries against them in audit reports was frustrating and detrimental to its functionalities and need for transparency.
