Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Senate has ordered 59 federal agencies to return over N300 billion misappropriated funds into the federation account with a 60-day ultimatum.
According to the upper chamber, the ultimatum covers all the money illegally spent by the erring agencies between 2013 and 2015 and they must be recovered and remitted into the treasury.
This was sequel to the consideration of the report of the Committee on Public Accounts on the yearly report of the Auditor General of the Federation (AGF) on accounts of the federation for the year ended December 31, 2015 (Part Ii &1).
The Senate panel, for over a year, had been investigating expenditures of federal government agencies from 2015 to 2018 based on an audit report by the AGF.
The committee’s chairman, Mr Matthew Urhoghide, in his presentation, disclosed that 114 MDAs were queried in the 2015 audit report, out of which 59 had their queries sustained after the probe.
In the course of the investigation, Mr Urhoghide said his panel observed, across the board, the incessant violation of extant rules by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The committee observed that the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) misappropriated N995 million; Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, N1.77 billion; Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), N68.9 billion, $2.3 million and €196,000.
Others are Nigeria Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), N4.35 billion; Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), N8.84 billion; Ministry of Petroleum Resources, N821.9 million; National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), N1.88 billion and Mortgage Bank, N369 million.
The report said the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs disposed of 22 vehicles to various beneficiaries in May 2015 and realised N5,215,500. Out of the 22 vehicles, eight were purchased on June 23 and August 18, 2014, for N106,560,000 and duly paid for. Less than one year after the acquisition, six of the vehicles costing N90,870,000 were sold at a ridiculous sum of N2,172,600.
The Senate, therefore, ordered the sum of N61,436,400.00, being the understated disposable value of the vehicles, be recovered and paid back to the treasury within 60 days.
