In the midst of the ruckus generated by the report of the audit probe of some ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation which found that some had failed to remit N3.3 trillion to the nation’s coffers, the Senate has said it would investigate the report.
The audit report had named the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the management of the National Assembly and the nation’s foreign mission in the United States as some of the culprits.
The report was submitted by the Auditor-General of the Federation, Mr. Samuel Ukura to the Clerk of the National Assembly, Salisu Maikasuwa on Monday.
But reacting, the Spokesman of the Senate, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said that the audit report should not be seen as an indictment of the government agencies mentioned, an assertion that can only be proven by the result of an investigation.
In the same vein, he said that the Senate Committee on Public Accounts would investigate the report and ensure that any official indicted does not escape sanction.
He added that the present National Assembly was poised to be different from previous ones, which is already manifesting in the passage of the reports of some committees like the one of Treasury Single Account (TSA).
He noted that the TSA had already saved the nation N7 billion.
“The auditor-general has raised some queries. It is not an indictment. So when he raises his queries, the essence is that the Public Accounts Committee will invite those parties involved in the query and through the instruments of their own work, investigate all the issues by seeking clarification and at the end of the day, where there were infractions or infringements on certain procedures, they would mete out appropriate sanctions as stipulated by the extant rules and regulations to those responsible.
“When there is a process and someone has done one part, until we conclusively finish that process, it will be unfair to accuse anyone of wrongdoing. These are administrative procedures and the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has made it clear that we would take oversight functions far more seriously than what it used to be in the past.
“If oversight functions are carried out properly, some of these queries that we talk about will begin to reduce because the essence is to see infractions before they happen,” he said.