The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee will on Monday and Tuesday question officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Independent National Electoral Commission over alleged financial breaches totalling more than N802.19bn.
The queries are contained in the Auditor-General for the Federation’s reports covering the 2021, 2022 and 2023 financial years and relate to alleged irregularities in procurement, revenue management, payments and compliance with financial regulations.
The committee, chaired by Bamidele Salam, who represents Ede North/Ede South/Ejigbo/Egbedore Federal Constituency of Osun State, is empowered by Sections 85, 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, to examine public accounts and investigate alleged revenue losses, non-remittance of statutory funds and breaches of financial regulations.
A member of the committee, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorised to speak on its behalf, said officials of several agencies would appear before the committee beginning Monday.
He said the NNPC and INEC would appear before the committee on Tuesday to respond to queries raised by the Auditor-General.
“On Tuesday at the National Assembly Complex, the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee will be questioning several agencies.
“As a matter of fact, we are starting on Monday, October 5, with some agencies including the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Federal Capital Territory Judicial Service Commission, Federal Colleges of Education, Okene and Gombe and the University Teaching Hospital, Ilorin. There are others I have not mentioned,” he said.
The lawmaker added, “Tuesday is special because we hope to have in the House the accounting officers and subject matter experts from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Independent National Electoral Commission.”
According to him, the Auditor-General’s 2021 report raised queries involving about N514bn against the NNPCL, while INEC would be asked to clarify alleged financial breaches amounting to N288.19bn contained in the 2022 audit report.
The NNPCL queries reportedly include alleged irregular deductions of N343.64bn from domestic crude oil sales.
The Auditor-General also reportedly flagged N83.66bn allegedly warehoused from miscellaneous revenue in a sinking fund account, alongside N82.95bn in alleged unauthorised deductions from Federation revenue.
Another N3.75bn was reportedly queried as a shortfall arising from the sale of petroleum products.
The committee is expected to demand supporting documents and explanations from the NNPCL on the transactions and responses to the audit queries.
On INEC, the lawmaker said the electoral commission had questions to answer over procurement processes, payments to contractors and alleged failure to remit statutory deductions.
“There are several audit queries concerning procurement procedures, payments made to contractors as well as failure to remit statutory deductions by the commission during the administration of the former INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who is now an ambassador,” he said.
He declined to provide details of all the alleged infractions but said the committee would examine expenditure dating back to the 2019 general election.
“There are questions to be asked on money spent starting from the 2019 general election,” he said.
The Auditor-General’s 2022 report had, among other issues, queried the payment of more than N5.31bn for the supply of smart card readers for the 2019 general election without prior approval from the Bureau of Public Procurement.
The smart card readers were deployed by INEC during the 2019 elections before the commission introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for the 2023 general elections.
Other agencies scheduled to appear before the committee on Tuesday include the National Mathematical Centre, National Power Training Centre, National Research Institute for Chemical Technology and the National Biotechnology Research and Development Agency.
The committee’s proceedings are part of its constitutional responsibility to examine the Auditor-General’s findings and compel public institutions to account for their expenditure and address outstanding audit queries.
However, an audit query does not by itself establish wrongdoing, as the affected agencies are entitled to respond and provide relevant documents or explanations before the committee reaches any conclusion.
Efforts to obtain comments from the committee chairman were unsuccessful, as calls to Salam were not answered, while he also did not respond to messages sent to him on WhatsApp.
