Through its Committee on Public Accounts on recently, Nigeria’s 10th Senate took a swipe at managements of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the Federal Inland Revenue Service ( FIRS) , the Nigeria Police Force and 12 others for their persistent refusal to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 Audit report.
Expressing the anger of the committee to journalists, its Chairman, Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu (SDP Nasarawa West), said since heads of the affected agencies refused to respond to queries raised against them in the 2019 audit report after several opportunities offered to do so, Sen Wadada said that going forward, any agency that refuses to honour invitation to defend its queries will have its queries sustained and reported to the Senate Plenary by the committee.
He added that the attitude of the affected public agencies on persistent refusal to respond to queries against them in audit report was frustrating and detrimental to aspirations and goals of President Bola Tinubu led federal government.
According to him, apart from NNPCL, FIRS and the Police , other heads of agencies involved in the habit of not honouring committee’s invitations to respond to queries against them are the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (former DPR) and Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment.
Others are FCT Internal Revenue Service, Nigeria Immigration Service, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Nigeria Communications Satellite Limited etc.
