NASS to wield big stick on MDAs indicted in AuGF reports

Lawmakers of the upper legislative body of the National Assembly has threatened to punish heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that were indicted in the audit report published by the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation currently being interrogated by the Committee on Public Accounts.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Senator Mathew Urhogide, disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja during the weekend.

Senator Urhogide condemned the recalcitrant attitude of some heads of agencies of government for failing to appear to defend alleged financial impropriety.

He said that some of them hide under the guise of being part of executive arm to shy away from the Senate scrutiny.

He noted that those errant chief executives frustrate the Committee exercise despite that the Constitution empowers them to scrutinise financial transactions of government agencies.

Uroghide informed that no warrant of arrest has been issued as it was only the 2015 report that has been concluded out of three years report that are being considered simultaneously.

He said: “But I want to tell you that it will not be business as usual for these agencies that fails to appear before this Committee.

“We are going to name and shame them before the Senate will take that decision.

“It will be their interest for them to come and defend allegations levelled against them. It’s better they come.

“We are talking of financial audit now which is a statutory function of this Committee.

“There is no agency that has immoral right to come and defend budget appropriation in the succeeding year when they have not accounted for what they have spent in the preceding year. It’s a shame.

“And those of them who believe they are part and parcel of Executive Government, they must know that they are giving executive arm of government a bad name for not coming to account for financial transactions; more so, that they have been accused by the Auditor-General for the Federation.

“What we are doing here is in accordance with the provisions of our Constitution and we are always quick to remind you that Section 85 which if you read what we are supposed to do as far as the Office of the Auditor General is concerned is that he brings the report to the Senate and of course, to the House of Representatives for consideration.”

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