The House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday summoned the auditors engaged by the Nigeria Customs Service over the failure of the service to render its audited financial accounts to the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation from between 2017 and 2019 financial years.
The committee had at its investigative hearing grilled a Comptroller of Customs, S. I. Ibrahim, who appeared before the lawmakers to answer to audit queries issued against the NCS by the OAuGF.
Ibrahim had told the committee that the audit reports were being delayed by the external auditors engaged by the Customs, adding that the auditors had promised to make the reports available soon.
The committee, however, disagreed with the NSC representative, asking him to state when the reports would be tendered.
Ibrahim pleaded with the lawmakers to give the Customs more time, to allow the auditors to complete their tax and rendition of the reports.
Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, ruled that the auditors of the NCS should appear before the lawmakers to brief them on why auditing of Customs’ accounts was delayed for three years.
Oke stated that the ruling became necessary to give the NCS a chance of fair hearing on the audit query raised by the OAuGF.
-Punch