The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has queried two Permanent Secretaries in the Ministry of Finance, Aliyu Ahmed and Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Aliyu Shehu Shagari over an unauthorized payment of ₦2,088,771.81 billion from the Federation Account from the Service Wide Vote.
Chairman of the House Committee, Woke Oke had told the Officials that there were five queries raised by the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation on the audit of the federation account managed by the Ministry of Finance.
According to him, the sum of over 2. 088 billion naira was released by the Ministry of Finance from the federation account in 2017 without authorization by the relevant Ministry officials against the provisions of the Law.
Oke also said that there was another payment of an over 98.7 million naira by the Officers to consultants and contractors to MDAs without due process and another over 28 million naira unsubstantiated retirement expenditure paid by the ministry.
He told the Permanent Secretariies and other Ministry officials that the payments were in contravention of extant financial regulations as it is beyond the threshold allowed the Minister of Finance. The Committee wants the money accounted for and returned to the Treasury.
However, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Aliyu Ahmed argued with the Lawmakers that the payments were made to some international organizations in tranches in accordance with the provisions of the Laws.
He explained that the over 2.8 billion Naira was paid to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and there are some memos detailing the payments with dates that were raised in the relevant offices of the Finance Ministry.
On the query of the award of over 98.5 million naira without due process, he said there is an approval of the contract by a Ministerial Tenders Board and that the contract followed due process.
On the payment from the Service Wide Vote, Aliyu said that the payment were routine payment that were made to some International Organizations adding that such payments were not governed by the Public Procurement Act.
Nontheless, the Committee Chairman in his ruling summoned the Managing Director of Galaxybackbone Limited, one of the contractors to appear unfailingly to shed lights on its role in the contract award.
The Lawmakers absolved the Ministry officials of four out of the five audit queries and charge them to be more prudent and transparent.