Four ministers in the President Muhammadu Buhari cabinet have been summoned by a House of Representatives committee over alleged failure of their respective ministries and agencies under them to audit their accounts.
The House Committee on Public Accounts has demanded that the ministers appear before it after the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation indicted them of not submitting reports of the audited accounts.
The ministers summoned were Minister of State for Health, Osagie Ehanire, Minister of Agriculture, Sabo Nanono, Minister of Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, and Minister of State for Transportation, Dr. Gbemisola Saraki.
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The House is investigating the “deliberate and reckless refusal” by some government agencies to render their audited accounts from 2014 to 2018.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Wole Oke, told journalists that some heads of agencies under the respective ministries have refused to honour the committee’s invitation.
He said the ministers and the agency heads must appear before the committee or be sanctioned.
The federal lawmaker added that the committee also placed at least seven agencies under status enquiry over their accounts and budget.
A status enquiry is a form of request made to a bank asking whether a customer is likely to meet specific financial commitments.
The organisations included the Nigeria Institute for International Affairs (NNIA); the Nigeria Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA); the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC); Radiographers Registration Board (RRB), the Inter-Country Centre for Oral Health, Root Crop Research Institute, Umudike; the Nigeria Natural Medicine Agency and the Lake Chad Research institute.
He said the agencies were to re-appear before the committee with their immediate past management team, their annual budgets and audited accounts covering the period under investigation.
