N857bn SWV: Military, Foreign Affairs Ministry, Budget Office, Others, Shun Senate Panel

•PCC fails to present record of N1.7bn collected from service wide vote

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

Institutions and agencies of the federal government which allegedly benefitted in the alleged secret withdrawal of N875 billion from the Service Wide Vote (SWV) did not appear before the Senate Public Account Committee, currently probing the matter.

Some of the affected 14 institutions and agencies were the Defence Headquarters, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Assets Management Company of Nigeria, Budget Office among others.

The Senate Panel led by Senator Mathew Urhoghide is probing the alleged collection of N857 billion from the SWV that some agencies collected from the fund, some of which were even bigger than their annual budget.

The Committee is specifically looking into the utilisation of the SWV between 2017 and 2021 which was about N5t trillion.

Over 200 agencies were expected to defend the utilisation of the fund secretly collected without involving the National Assembly Committees mandated by the Constitution to oversight them.

Urhoghide lamented the attitude of the agencies that ignored the Committee.

The chairman alleged that there was problem of accountability among the government agencies in the country which he said was against the provision of the constitution.

He said the affected agencies should have respect for the rule of law and come to give account of the money collected from SWV without involving the National Assembly Committee mandated to oversight them

The Chairman said: “I don’t know the audacity they have to choose not to appear before the National Assembly Committee.

“We are going ruthlessly against all of them, we are going to issue warrant of arrest against any agency which fails to honour the invitation.”

According to the record, the Budget Office collected N68 billion; Refugee Commission – N10.2 billion; Defence Headquarters – N579 billion; AMCON- N8.13 billion; and the Civil Defence – N4.9 billion.

Others are: Foreign Affairs – N96.6 billion; Military – N66.8 billion; SGF- N23.9 billion and National Emergency Management Agency – N2.3 billion collected from Service Wide Votes between 2017 to 2021. Also, the Air Force was said to have collected N14 billion.

Meanwhile, the Public Complaint Commission (PCC) yesterday failed to present letter of request for the collection of N1.7 billion from the SWV between 2017 and 2021 to the senate panel.

At the beginning of the investigative hearing, the Chairman of the Committee had told the PCC team the total amount of fund collected from SWV and requested, Chief Commissioner, Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf to present the letter requesting for the SWV.

However, the Chief Commissioner failed to present letter of request for the SWV.

“I don’t have the letters requesting for the Service Wide Votes,” he said.

There was a mild drama as the Chairman of the Senate Committee said that he was unaware that N852 million from SWV.