The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has issued a 24-hour ultimatum to acting Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sarah Alade; Executive Director of Finance, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Mr Sambo Aliyu and Accountant General to the Federation (AGF), Mr Jonah Otunla to explain their individual roles in the alleged missing N59.6 billion Service Wide Vote in 2006.
Representatives of the three organisations claimed ignorance of such funds during the investigative hearing before the committee in Abuja on Tuesday.
In a letter presented by Aliyu, he acknowledged that the budget office said they released money to NNPC, but claimed ignorance of the current location of the funds.
“The cash was not released, we did not see any money”, he declared.
In response, the committee ordered all the relevant agencies to reconvene once again on Wednesday.
Responding for CBN, Mr Dipo Fatokun insisted that he must get a mandate from the AGF before making known his own part of the story.
“We will need to get the mandates from the AGF”, Fatokun said.
The committee members thus requested Fatokun to invite his bosses over on Wednesday since he does not seem capable enough to answer the committee’s queries.
Mrs. Tayo Toluwase, a director, in the budget office declined to answer any question on behalf of the office saying she “does not have all the relevant details on the issue”.
In response, chairman of the committee, Olamilekan Adeola ordered that the AGF should bring all the documents involved the disbursement of the fund including all bank transactions between July and December 2006, a copy of the federation account and copies of statements of accounts through CBN for the period under review.
“If there was any mandate on the said missing N59.6bn it will show at a glance”, Adeola said. “We are tired of all the excuses of all the agencies involved claiming ignorance at one stage or the other.”
