The Senate through its Committee on Public Accounts has commenced investigation of the Office of Accountant – General of the Federation over N978billion Service Wide Vote (SWV) disbursed to various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) from 2017 to 2021.
The N978 billion SWV received and disbursed by the office of Accountant General of the Federation to affected MDAs from 2017 to 2021 consists of extra budgetary spendings covering recurrent and capital components of yearly budget of the agencies that benefitted.
Investigation of the vote is coming less than one week that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), disclosed that the agency has collected about N30 billion from the former Accountant General of Federation, Idris Ahmed, who is currently under investigation for N110 billion fraud.
Speaking at the opening of the investigative hearing on Tuesday, the Chairman of Senate Public Accounts Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide (PDP Edo South), observed that there are some releases from SWV which there are no Authority to Incure Expenditure (AIE) and this elicited suspension of the Committee adding it was only memos provided to back the releases.
The Chairman who was not satisfied with submission of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation said that the Office of Accountant General needs to give detailed explanations to the committee on how the N978billion received, were disbursed to the affected MDAs and for what purposes.
“From what I have seen, we may need time so that we can analyse the expenditures or disbursements , one by one, these figures are enormous and the response is not satisfactory,” he said.
In his response , the Office of Accountant General of the Federation, represented by Director of Fund, Sabo Mohammed, told the committee to give them more time to respond to issues raised by the Lawmakers.
He said it will take some time for the Office to give the detailed explanations to the committee.
“We should do it systematically to save our time and your time , this is a matter of going back and doing 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 correct “, he said .
The Chairman therefore, asked the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to go back and put the documents together and appear on Thursday December 22, 2022.
