Senate Probes Accountant-General Over Alleged N978bn From SWVs
The Senate on Tuesday began probing the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation over the N978billion it allegedly received from the Service Wide Votes (SWV), between 2017 and 2021.
The said N978billion comprises both capital and recurrent expenditures which were said to have been disbursed by the AGF’s office to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The investigation is coming less than a week after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), said it recovered N30 billion from a former Accountant-General of the Federation, Idris Ahmed, who is currently under investigation for an alleged N110 billion fraud.
Speaking at the opening session of the investigative hearing, the Chairman of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, noted that there were some releases from the SWV with no Authority to Incure Expenditure (AIE).
He said this made the Committee suspicious adding that the AGF’s office provided only memos to back the releases.
The Chairman, who said the AGF’s response to the committee was not satisfactory, demanded an explanation of how the expenditures were made, saying the figures were enormous.
“From what I have seen, we may need time so that we can analyse the expenditure one by one. These figures are enormous and your response is not satisfactory,” Urhoghide said.
The AGF’s office, represented at the session by the Director of Fund Sabo Mohammed, asked the committee for more time to respond to the issues raised by the lawmakers.
Mohammed said: “It will take some time, we should do it systematically to save our time and your time, this matter requires us to go back and do them one after the other.
“We have responded to some, but we will still go back and separate our expenditures from that of the MDAs.
“We have found out that many of the figures may not be correct.”
Granting his request, the Chairman asked the AGF to go back and put the documents together and reappear before the panel tomorrow.
