Probe, Senate urge AG to probe NNPC, NPA, other big agencies

By Our Reporter

The Senate has on Monday urged the acting Auditor General of the Federation, Mr. Adolphus Aghughu, to focus more on the financial transactions of big revenue generation agencies instead of beaming searchlight only on smaller agencies.

The Chairman, Senate Public Affairs Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide, gave the charge on Monday while commenting on the 2021 budget defence of the office of the Auditor-General for the Federation.

He specifically urged the AuGF to ensure holistic and comprehensive auditing of the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Nigerian Ports Authority, and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Authority among others.

He said, “You claim that you are auditing the account of the federation and you won’t touch the accounts of the NNPC, NPA, NIMASA among others.

“You will remove all the big spenders from your watch list but you will focus on smaller agencies. That is what has been happening from 2015 till date.

“We don’t want to be seeing these smaller agencies of government that you are focusing on because they can’t settle well. We are tired of seeing audit queries involving municipal councils leaving behind the big agencies.”

The SPAC boss said his committee would carry out further works on what the AuGF was doing regarding the Bureau of Public Procurement.

He said, “We are doing status enquiries on the Bureau of Public Procurement based on the Auditor General report.

“We want to expand the scope. We want to look at their revenue and expenditure profile. We will look at the budget, particularly the Internally Generated Revenue.

“We want to see everything they have been collecting and how they’re spending it.

“We have asked the secretariat to write to them and invite them. The indictment of the Auditor General is correct. They could not even defend the queries issued against them by the Auditor General.”

Punch