Summons to answer financial irregularities: MDAs’ shunning approcah and the need for legislative assertiveness
As the drumbeats of financial recklessness continue to take ugly face of revelations with misappropriation of funds, the records have largely remained fishy and cloudy across affected Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). The need to probe into identified gaps revealing depths of lacunas in billions has become a public course, to the degree of the pronounced records of depths of financial recklessness.
However, the National Assembly saddled with the responsibility of oversight function in the Country may not be having a good ride in its move to probe into Agencies which audit reports have revealed incriminating gaps of financial recklessness within their frame over the years. Array of sessions of either the joint committee of the National Assembly or separate occasions of public account committees of both Chambers, have recorded tingling narratives, which on an average, have seen representatives of some of these Agencies in concern, falling short of proffering sheet clearing explanations to clear grounds of gaps of financial imbalances. At some other points, default of some of the Agencies in ignoring the summon of either Chambers of the National Assembly to answer to the allegations of financial recklessness have been a case in the process. Shunning such summon is growing in turn as another prank played by affected MDAs. House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts announced most recently its resolve to report some Ministries and head of Agencies to President Muhammadu Buhari for refusing to appear and answer to audit queries from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. The committee has also threatened to publish the report on the National dailies. The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Busayo Oluwole Oke (PDP-Osun) on Friday at the sitting of the Committee following the absence of an MDA and all its 17 subsidiaries at a session, said that the Committee was tired of summoning the concerned Agencies and their heads without compliance — a disposition that frustrated the Committee to direct its clerk to compile the list of the defaulting MDAs and forward same with a covering letter to the Chief of Staff to President Buhari, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and the Attorney General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice for judicial notice. According to him, the defaulting MDAs are the National Insurance Commission, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Federal Ministry of Mines & Steel Development, Federal Ministry of Health and a host of others. The lawmaker had said that the unanswered queries hinged on “abuse of fiscal Policies, non-rendition of Audited Accounts, status inquiry, Service Wide Vote dated back to 2013 to date.”
Lamenting the ill-disposed posture of the affected MDAs, he was quoted, “The Committee decided to extract and publish such audit queries in the National Dailies for the public to see the truth for themselves. We are not the authors of the queries but the office of the Auditor General of the Federation. Rather than to appear before the committee and speak to the facts, they will stay away and be issuing counter press statements to blackmail the parliament. The Committee is not out to witch-hunt any individual or any organisation. For instance, the office of the Auditor- General queried an Agency for spending a whopping sum of N45million within a week for a room in a hotel in Abuja. We invited the Management of the Hotel, they appeared before the Committee, gave us vital information and we invited the Management of the concerned Agency several times but they had refused to show up for their defence till today.
“We have many of such cases. What we are saying is that they should come and defend themselves and as a parliament, we cannot continue to wait for them. We are giving them the last chance to show up. After we must have reported them to their employer, who is Mr. President, published their names and the queries raised against them in the National Dailies, then, we will have no option than use our constitutional power to get them and be brought here to face the law. But we believe that by reporting them to their employer, they will be forced to show up before ordering their arrest. No amount of blackmail will stop us from doing our jobs, enough is enough.”
Recently, the disclosure of administrative lacuna reflecting non-remittance of large sums of revenue over time has been taking toll of nauseating records. In 2021, a number of cases of records had taken course with probes set up by the National Assembly to call affected MDAs nailed in the discrepancies to give account. The joint efforts of the two chambers of the National Assembly to probe the Agencies whose records have revealed lacunas with suspicion of financial recklessness in the light of apparent skewing of proper accountability had raised concerns, particularly on revenue generating Agencies. The discoveries have led to Agencies falling under such category appearing on invitation by either of the Chambers or a joint committee formation to defend alleged cases of financial discrepancies. Records have shown how some of the representatives of the affected MDAs fumbled during summon to answer to the discrepancies.
In its 2019 Annual Report on Non-Compliance, Internal Control, and Weakness Issues in MDAs of the Federal Government of Nigeria for the year ended December 31, 2019, which was submitted to the National Assembly, the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (OAuGF) disclosed that no less than 15 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies failed to remit N127.13bn revenue to the Consolidated Revenue Fund between 2017 and 2019.
The CRF was created by Section 80(1) of the 1999 Constitution which states that, “All revenues or other sums of money raised or received by the Federation (not being revenues or other money payable under this Constitution or any Act of the National Assembly into any other public fund of the Federation established for a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.” According to the audit report, the finance circular issued on November 11, 2011, with reference number BO/RVE/12235/259/VII/201 requires all agencies to limit their utilisation of Internally Generated Revenue to not more than 75 per cent of the gross revenue while the balance of not less than 25 per cent should be remitted to the CRF. In view of the requirement, the OAuGF observed that, “The sum of N127,129,212,622.58 (One hundred and twenty seven billion, one hundred and twenty nine million, two hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and twenty two naira, fifty eight kobo) was the amount of revenues/internally generated revenues not remitted to relevant authorities by fifteen (15) Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.”
That Nigeria have been debilitated by the scourge of corruption in various dimensions, is an understatement. The wings of misappropriation, diversion and laundering of funds meant for developmental purposes have been a top matter of critical concern. At a time when the Government is largely constrained by dwindling revenue, short circuiting its scope of operations, situation only demands that reformative responses be deployed with strategic firmness to redefine the operating orientation of public finance in the Country. Rejigging the processes of the prevailing system to embrace structures that would close the pronounced cleavages of sapping routes in the system is paramount.
With the constraints of revenue generation, the fate of the economy is now shattered with the challenges of limited provisions to execute critical capital projects essential to vitalise the economy of the Country. Closing the sapping gaps within MDAs to shrink, to the bearest minimum, the proclivities of fund diversions and lacunas of unremitted funds is non negotiable. The National Assembly must work concertedly and creatively with the echelons of the executive authorities to redefine the operating orientation of public finance in the Country. This is sacrosanct to salvage the polity from the scourge of deforming strings ravaging its fabrics.
