The Senate has resolved to issue a warrant of arrest on the officials of the Presidential Amnesty Programme over failure to account for the mismanagement of N10bn meant for the programme.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Account, Senator Matthew Urhogbide, said the decision became necessary following the failure of the Interim Administrator of the Scheme, Retired Col. Milland Dikio, to honor the invitation of the Committee on the alleged financial scandal.
The senator noted that the committee had invited Dikio to appear before the Committee on the query raised against the programme in the 2018 report of the Auditor General of the Federation.
Documents obtained revealed that the Interim Administrator of PAP was billed to appear on February 3, 2022, in a letter dated January 25, the same year but never showed up.
In another letter still in 2022, he was expected to appear on June 16 in a letter dated May 19, but he still never responded to the invite. He was recently invited on July 5 in a letter dated June 28 and likewise failed to honour any of the invitations submitted to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
Speaking on the persistent failure of the officials of PAP to appear before the Panel, Senator Urhogbide said it was an affront for an agency that comes to National Assembly to get appropriation declined to appear before the National Assembly to give Account non the money spent.
He said the committee has no other option than to issue a warrant of arrest on the accounting officer of the PAP.
The Chairman said, “They have consistently refused to appear before the Committee, which is very unfortunate.
“We will issue a warrant of arrest on the Accounting officer of the PAP. We have left with no other option than to explore that option.”