Senate Condemns Police, FIRS, NNPCL, and Others Regarding Audit Report

The management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigeria Police Force, and 12 other organizations came under fire from the Senate on Tuesday through its Committee on Public Accounts for their steadfast refusal to reply to questions posed against them in the 2019 Audit report.

Senator Ahmed Aliyu (SDP Nasarawa West), the committee’s chairman, briefed journalists in Abuja, stating that because the leaders of the impacted agencies declined to answer questions posed against them in the 2019 audit report, despite being given multiple chances to do so,

He declared that from now on, the committee will pursue the agency’s questions and bring them before the Senate plenary if it declined to accept an invitation to defend them.

In order to give its findings to the plenary, the Committee began deliberating over the Audit findings in October 2023, according to Aliyu.

Nevertheless, some agencies have blatantly refused to accept invitations to provide justification for the written answers they sent to the Committee Secretariat in response to the audit queries.

“In addition to the requirement that written answers to audit queries be submitted, part of the Committee’s rules of engagement mandate that Accounting Officers attend the Public Hearing in order to address any questions that may arise from the Committee’s analysis of their submissions, which will serve as the foundation for the Committee’s deliberative decision.

Some CEOs or accounting officers of the relevant MDAs are acting evasively and negatively, which is impeding the Public Accounts Committee’s ability to fulfill its constitutional and legislative duties on time.

“The Committee is extremely dissatisfied with the attitude of foot dragging by agencies who are legally required to reply to invitations from parliament and provide an explanation for their actions.

“The Committee has repeatedly invited those agencies, giving them ample opportunity to respond to their inquiries, but these agencies have declined invitations for reasons that are only known to them.”

According to Aliyu, the impacted public institutions’ unwavering reluctance to address the questions posed against them in audit reports was aggravating and counterproductive to the objectives of the Federal Government, which is led by President Bola Tinubu.