The House of Representatives is to petition President Muhammadu Buhari over the refusal of some agencies of government to appear before its Committee on Public Account to answer questions over financial irregularities traced to them or clarify some records provided by other agencies.
The House Committee on Public Account is particularly not happy with the refusal of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emiefele, Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Managing Director of the Nigeria Port Authority, Haha Hadiza Bala Usman and the Bureau for Public Enterprises to appear before it over sales of federal government landed property across the country.
The agencies, alongside the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), and the Petroleum Equalization Fund failed to appear before the Committee on Public Account over the sales of some government property.
Wole Oke, the chairman of the House Committee on Public Account, told the Clerk of the Committee to forward a petition to the President through the office of the Secretary to the Federation and the Chief of Staff to the President informing him of the refusal of the heads of the agency to honour the invitation of the Parliament.
He said the President should compel the agencies to honour the invitation of the House within seven days.
However, at its hearing on Wednesday, August 5, 2020, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, and the Nigeria Electricity Liabilities Management Company denied selling any government property or being in possession of any proceed from the sale.
S.A. Abdulazeez, the managing director of Transmission Company of Nigeria, told the Committee that “TCN was not involved in the sales of federal government landed property. When the Power Holding Company was privatised, all assets and liabilities were handed over to the Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO and so, we have no presentation to make”.
Responding to, the director general of NELMCO, Adebayo Fagbemi said not all PHCN assets were transferred to the agency, adding that some of the properties handed over to him were already sold before they were handed over to them.
He said that the gazette authorising the transfer also transferred some of the assets to other agencies including the Nigeria Electricity Management Service Agency and National Power Training Institute of Nigeria and the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company, NBET.
Source: The Nation
