The House of Representative's Committee on Finance has queried the acting Registrar of the National Examinations Council (NECO), Ebikibina Ogborodi over the sum of N636,778,000 unremitted in 2019.
Ogborodi was grilled along with other top executives of NECO by the committee at an investigative hearing on Wednesday.
The acting Registrar blamed the non-remittance on debts owed by some state governments such as Zamfara, Adamawa, Kano, Gombe, and Borno State.
Ogborodi said the council had written to the relevant agencies to assist with the recovery of the money.
The committee directed the agency to forward evidence of debts and supporting documents as confirmation of its claims.
The committee also enquired about the accounting operating system currently used by NECO but the Director of finance and account, Jacob Ekele said it was a manual process.
The Chairman of the committee, James Faleke said “We will block your account; we will only release money for exams. Any money you will need will be after our reconciliation. The accountant general will be the chief accountant of your agency until a proper standard and scientific method is established where anybody can be assured that you are doing a good job.”
Faleke also expressed surprise that NECO had no accounting software but would offer accounting as a subject in its examinations.
NECO was placed on status enquiry by the committee and also directed that all heads of account and admin departments across the 36 states, including the FCT, should appear before the committee with all relevant documents on finances on July 13.
