Senate Panel Begins Probe  on 252 agencies benefited in N5 trillion Service Wide Votes

Senate Public Account Committee (SPAC)  on Wednesday embarked on  Investigation of 252 government agencies who benefited from N5 trillion Service Wide Votes (SWV) between 2017 to 2021.

The decision of the Senate to investigate the Service Wide Votes (SWV) was as a result of discovery by Senate that many agencies collected Fund from SWV without notifying the National Assembly Panels that is mandated by law to oversight the agencies .

Addressing the newsmen, the Chairman of the Senate Public Account Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide said that the Investigation has to do with disbursement of Service Wide Votes between 2017 to 2021 adding the Service Wide Votes has become major component of nation’s budget considering amount budgeted annually for it in the budget.

He said the Committee has to see how the money collected from Service Wide Votes is being expended because there are confusion on the approval of the Votes .

According to him, we want to see how this money is being expended there are confusion on approval, we want to really get to know what is going on.

He added that any agency who fails to appear the Committee will not hestitate to issue warrant of arrest on the head of the agency because it has been discovered that many agencies collected this fund without informing the National Assembly Committee saddled with responsibility to overnight the agency.

He said will not tolerate the absence of Galaxy Backbone, Ministry of Interior, Budget Office , State House , NBET who are scheduled to appear before the committee.

He added that Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) collected N180 billion from the votes , NBET collected N2.9 billion and Ministry of Humanitarian , received N445 billion from the Votes .

Among the 252 Ministries , Departments and Agencies that are expected to appear in the ongoing Investigation of Service Wide Votes between 2017 till 2021 are Ministry of Information and Culture, Defence , NHIS, Police , Ministry of Power , Bank of Industry , Water Resources , National Assembly, Public Complaint Commission (PCC), Directorate of State Service (DSS) and Presidential Amnesty Programme.

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