The House of Representatives has resolved to investigate ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government over various unremitted revenue and leakages detected by the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation.
A member of the House, Abdullahi Abdulkadir, moved on a motion on Wednesday to pray the lawmakers to mandate the Committee on Public Accounts, of which he is the Deputy Chairman, to investigate the allegations.
The motion was titled ‘Need to Investigate the Report of the Auditor General for the Federation on the Accounting and Financial Infractions of Government and International Organisations.’
Abdulkadir recalled that the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation had raised several queries on the Federation Account, particularly covering 2015 to 2017 “as regards losses of income due to leakages, financial misapplication, misappropriation, under-reporting and falsification and which was corroborated by the Forensic Audit Report by KPMG that indicted some Federal Government Agencies for losses of up to N526bn and $21bn.”
The lawmaker noted that the losses were allegedly occasioned by an interplay of activities of persons both in the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy, including multinational companies, “and the continued exploitation of Nigeria’s economy through the deployment of deceitful and irregular accounting practices is resulting in huge capital flight, deficit balances and a weakened economy.”
He said, “The House is cognisant that if urgent steps are not taken to address those hydra-headed issues, they may lead to a total collapse of the economy with its attendant social and political crisis.”
-Punch