Senate Threatens To Fire Heads Of Key Revenue Agencies Over Failure To Respond To Audit Queries
The Senate has raised concerns over the consistent failure of critical revenue-generating agencies to respond to expenditure queries raised by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation (OAGF).
In a news conference on Tuesday in Abuja, Senator Aliyu Wadada, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, announced that the Senate would recommend the sacking of the chief executives of these agencies to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for further action if they fail to provide answers.
Wadada highlighted that agencies like the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) had failed to appear before the committee to address audit queries.
He stressed the importance of the agencies being held accountable for the funds appropriated by the National Assembly in line with parliamentary oversight responsibilities.
Wadada also raised concerns about the CBN’s handling of funds and the “ways and means” operations. He pointed out that over N30 trillion was debited from the Consolidated Revenue Funds Account and credited to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), both government accounts. The lawmaker questioned why interest charges were applied to the TSA instead of the Treasury Account and raised further concerns about charges amounting to over N6 trillion.
The Senate committee has reportedly had multiple correspondences with the Ministry of Finance, the Debt Management Office (DMO), and the CBN, but the agencies have been evasive in addressing the queries.
Wadada also cited that Nigeria Satellite Communications Limited had failed to appear before the committee nine times, and other agencies such as the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority have similarly ignored invitations.
The committee’s ongoing investigation, covering audit queries from 2019 to the present, has sparked significant frustration among lawmakers, with potential consequences for the agency heads involved.
