The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee is set to question officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Independent National Electoral Commission over alleged financial infractions totalling about N802.19bn.
The committee, chaired by the lawmaker representing Ede North/Ede South/Ejigbo/Egbedore Federal Constituency of Osun State, Bamidele Salam, is expected to commence the exercise on Monday and continue on Tuesday at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.
The audit queries are contained in reports of the Auditor-General for the Federation covering the 2021, 2022 and 2023 financial years and relate to alleged irregularities in procurement, revenue handling, payments and compliance with financial regulations.
A member of the committee, who spoke with The PUNCH on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, said the NNPCL and INEC would be among the major agencies appearing before the panel on Tuesday.
He said the 2021 audit report raised queries amounting to about N514bn against the NNPCL, while INEC was expected to respond to queries involving approximately N288.19bn contained in the 2022 audit report.
The NNPCL queries reportedly include alleged irregular deductions of N343.64bn from domestic crude oil sales, N83.66bn allegedly kept in a sinking fund account from miscellaneous revenue and another N82.95bn in purported unauthorised deductions from Federation revenue.
The Auditor-General also reportedly identified a further N3.75bn shortfall linked to the sale of petroleum products.
The committee is expected to demand relevant documents from the oil company and obtain explanations concerning the transactions flagged by the Auditor-General.
For INEC, the panel will reportedly examine issues surrounding procurement procedures, payments to contractors and the non-remittance of statutory deductions during the tenure of the former Chairman of the commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who has since been appointed an ambassador.
The committee member said the electoral body would also be asked to account for expenditure connected with the 2019 general election.
One of the audit issues reportedly concerns the payment of more than N5.31bn for the supply of smart card readers for the 2019 elections without prior approval from the Bureau of Public Procurement.
The smart card readers were among the technologies deployed by INEC during the 2019 elections before the commission introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for the 2023 polls.
The Public Accounts Committee’s investigation is part of its constitutional mandate to scrutinise public expenditure, examine Auditor-General’s reports and demand accountability from government institutions over financial transactions.
However, the audit queries do not in themselves establish that the agencies committed wrongdoing, as the affected institutions are entitled to provide documents, explanations and other evidence in response to the observations.
Other government institutions expected to appear before the committee include the National Mathematical Centre, National Power Training Centre, National Research Institute for Chemical Technology and the National Biotechnology Research and Development Agency, among others.
Efforts to obtain comments from Salam were unsuccessful, as calls to his telephone were unanswered, while he also failed to respond to messages sent to him on WhatsApp.
