Senate Probes Accountant General Over N978bn Service Wide Vote

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The Senate yesterday commenced an investigation into the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation over the N978 billion it received from the Service Wide Vote (SWV), between 2017- 2021.

The amount was the expenditure of both capital and recurrent expenditures disbursed to the Ministries, Department, and Agencies (MDAs).

The investigation came less than one week after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) disclosed that the agency collected about N30 billion from the former Accountant General of the Federation, Idris Ahmed, who is currently under investigation for N110 billion fraud.

Speaking at the opening of the investigative hearing, the Chairman of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide observed that there were some releases from SWV in which there was no authority to incur expenditure and this elicited suspension of the Committee, adding that it was only memos provided to back the releases.

The Chairman of the panel was not satisfied with the submission of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

He said the Office of Accountant General needed to explain to the committee on bit by bit of the expenditures for proper understanding, “because the figures are enormous and response to the committee is not satisfactory.”

Uroghide said, “From what I have seen, we may need time so that we can analyse the expenditure one by one, these figures are enormous and the response is not satisfactory.”

However, the Office of Accountant General of the Federation, represented by Director of Fund, Sabo Mohammed, told the committee to give them more time to respond the issues raised by the Lawmakers.

He said, “It will take some time, we should do it systematically to save our time and your time, this is a matter of going back and do them one after the other.

“We have responded to some, we will still go back and separate our own from that of MDAs. We have found out that many of the figures may not be correct.”

The Chairman, therefore, asked the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to go back and put the documents together and appear on Thursday.