The House of Representatives Public Account Committee (PAC) on Wednesday instructed the Federal Fire Service to remit the sum of N1.4 billion released to the agency for COVID-19 intervention funds which it failed to account for back to the Federal Government within seven days. This directive was issued by the Chairperson of PAC, Hon. Bamidele Salam, after the failure of the service to honor the invitation to explain the expenditure of the fund. It was revealed that the Federal Fire Service was invited to appear before the committee but the agency never honored the invitation and did not send any letter to the committee on why it failed to respond to the invitations.
Salam directed the accounting officer of the Federal Fire Service to pay the money into the federal government’s coffer within seven days and bring the evidence of remittance to the committee for confirmation.
The Committee also issued fresh invitations to other defaulting Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to explain various queries from the Auditor General of the Federation regarding billions of Naira allocated as intervention funds during COVID-19.
The affected agencies include the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), N5bn; Accountant General of the Federation Office, N63.8bn; Ministry of Health, N53bn and Women Affairs Ministry, N1.25bn.
The Committee Chairman noted that the Federal Fire Service had ignored the panel’s summons three times consecutively, while the other MDAs failed to appear twice each. He warned that these groups have one week to appear or face sanctions.
“A public officer who fails to satisfactorily respond to the Auditor-General’s query within 21 days for failure to collect due Government Revenue shall be surcharged and transferred to another schedule.“If an officer fails to reply satisfactorily to an audit query within 7 days for failure to account for government revenue, such an officer shall be surcharged for the full amount involved and handed over to either the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC),” he added.
