BEVERLY HILLS, CA, December 15, (THEWILL) – The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives has summoned the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, to appear before it on Wednesday to answer questions relating to alleged misuse of N100.561 billion Service-wide Votes from the Presidency between 2004 and 2012.
Disclosing this at the weekend was the chairman of the committee, Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan , who said the SGF, who was earlier scheduled to appear before the committee last Thursday will now honour the invitation on Wednesday.
Olamilekan said the invitation of the SGF is in continuation of the on going investigation into the Service-wide Votes following audit queries issued by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, (AGF) to the Office of the SGF and the ministry within the period under review and presented to the Public Accounts Committee.
The queries show that several releases were made to the office of the SGF totalling N94.005 billion between 2004 and 2012 from the Service -wide Votes.
The breakdown of the disbursements are as follows: 2004:N255,958 million, 2005:N1,532 billion, 2006:N19,157 million,2007: N1,451 billion,2008:N26,247 billion,2009:N42,568 billion,2010:N3,791 billion,2011:N10,189 billion and 2012:N7,949 billion.
Meanwhile, the Federal Ministry of Information was said to have received the sum of N6, 558 billion from the same vote between 2004 and 2012.
The breakdown is as follows: 2004:N108,464 million, 2005:N251.142 million,2007: N4,412 billion,2009:N167,500 million, 2010:N153,093 million and 2012:N1,180 billion respectively.
Testifying before the committee at the weekend, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of. Information, Dr. Sade Yemi-Esan, told the committee that the ministry had no single document on the releases made to it between 2004 and 2009 totalling over N4.6billion but agreed with the figures quoted for between 2010 and 2012.
Following his submission, Olamilekan directed the Permanent Secretary to go back and search for all relevant documents relating to the disbursement which had already been confirmed by the Debts Management Office (DMO), and to reappear before it on Wednesday
Olamilekan expressed deep concern over the reckless manner in which the Service Wide Vote accounts were being abused over the years by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs), saying between N900 00 billion to N1 trillion were withdrawn from the account between 2004 and 2012 with nothing to show for it.
Saint Mugaga, Abuja
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