The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, (PAC) on Monday threatened to issue warrants of arrest to the heads of the Rural Electrification Agency, Nigeria Upstream Regulatory Authority, the Nigeria Satellite Communications Ltd NIGCOMSAT and the Nigeria Export Promotion Council.
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Bamidele Salam, the chairman of the committee, issued a threat following the failure of heads of the MDAs to honour the committee’s invitation over a N300bn audit query.
The committee also directed the heads of the Export Processing Zone Authority and the Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun, Delta State to appear before it in 72 hours or be ready to answer queries from the office of the auditor-general of the federation.
Bamidele had informed that out of the six invited agencies, only the Rural Electrification Agency sent a letter to the committee pleading for the CEO’s absence due to another engagement.
He informed that the issues at stake by his committee bordered on misappropriation of funds, just as he bemoaned the attitude of heads of government agencies in honouring parliamentary invitations.
The committee chairman explained that the invitation was to enable his committee have the affected MDAs’ input over the ongoing investigative hearing pertaining to audit queries on them.
According to him, “We are going to use our constitutional power to ensure that every kobo spent by the MDAs is prudently spent.
“I plead with my esteemed committee members to give these agencies a second chance to appear” he lamented.
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The committee chairman, therefore, directed the heads of the six agencies and institutions to appear unfailingly before the panel on or before next Thursday, November 2, 2023.
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