Senate summons Auditor-General over unaudited NIS’ account

The Senate Committee on Finance has summoned the Auditor-General for the Federation, Aghughu Arhotomhenia, for failing to audit accounts of the Nigeria Immigration Service since 2017.

The panel asked Arhotomhenia to appear before it next Tuesday to explain why his office had not given guidelines for the auditing of NIS accounts since 2017 despite repeated letters from immigration to provide the guidelines.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Solomon Adeola, gave the directive when the NIS ControllerGeneral, Mohammed Babandede, appeared before the committee investigating remittances of internally generated revenue and 1% Stamp Duty on all contracts by MDAs into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Victor Muruako, had told the committee that his agency had not received the audited accounts of NIS since 2017 contrary to the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 among other infractions.

In his response, Babandede said there had been no guidelines from AuditorGeneral’s Office despite repeated official requests from the NIS, adding that the unaudited accounts over the years had just been launched by the Minister of Interior.

He said the revenuegenerating operation of the NIS was under a public -private partnership he inherited with a sharing formula agreement that could not be readily renegotiated or cancelled in the foreseeable future leaving the agency to remit only about 20 % of revenue generated to the Federal Government.