By Kate Obi/Abuja
The House of Representatives (HOR) has on Wednesday ordered the Federal Fire Service (FFS) to refund the sum of one point four eight billion naira to the Consolidated Revenue Fund within the next seven days, following its refusal by the Head to honour the invitations from the Committee for the fourth time to explain the spending of the COVID-19 fund.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts (PAC), Bamidele Salami who gave the order during the resumed probe of the COVID-19 intervention fund in Abuja, affirmed that the Accounting Officer of the Fire Service should refund the said monies following its refusal to honour for the fourth time invitations from the committee to explain the spending of the COVID-19 fund.
The Chairman bemoaned that the Federal Fire Service had snubbed the Committee’s summons three different times in a row, while the other affected MDAs did the same twice each, saying that the later group had within one week to appear or face sanctions.
He pointed out in the Act that “A public officer who fails to respond to the Auditor-General’s query satisfactorily within 21 days for failure to collect government revenue due shall be surcharged and be transferred to another schedule. Where an officer fails to give a satisfactory reply to an audit query within 7 days for his failure to account for government revenue, such officer shall be surcharged for the full amount involved, and such officers shall be handed over to either the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
“This committee has a lot of assignments before it. The COVID-19 probe is just one; we have to move on to other assignments“ he narrated.
Salami noted that the Committee would afford the National Centre for Disease Control (N5 billion), the Ministry of Agriculture (N63.8 billion), the Ministry of Women Affairs through the Centre for Women Development (N1.25 billion), the Ministry of Health (N53 billion), and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (N33 billion) another opportunity to present before the committee regarding the allocation of COVID-19 funds.
The Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Jeremiah Umar, moved a motion for the refund of the amount, complaining that “so many other agencies have appeared before this Committee, and the investigation is ongoing, he don’t see any reason why the Fire Service will ignore a committee like this.
The lawmaker explained that since the Service could not appear to explain what the money was spent for, it should be refunded to the coffers of the federation.
While ruling on the motion, Salam stressed that the Fire Service must refund the sum of N1.484 billion it collected as a COVID-19 intervention fund in 2020/2021 and submit evidence of the refund within Seven days, while the other affected agencies would be invited once for the last chance to make an appearance.
The Committee therefore issued fresh invitations to some other defaulting Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the federal government to appear and explain various queries standing against them from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation on several billions of Naira allocated to them during COVID-19 as intervention funds
The affected MDAs are the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (N50.5 billion), the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (N33 billion), the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, through the National Centre for Women Development (N625 million), the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) (N25 billion), and the Federal Ministry of Health (N10 billion).
Members of the Committee however expressed concerns that the fire service may be taking the constitutional committee for granted.
Meanwhile, the Committee have gave the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the Accountant General Office and the Ministry of Agriculture the final invitation to appear before them to explain the COVID-19 funds they received.
