House Grills Accountant General over N1.819tn Extra-budgetary Spending

Udora Orizu

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, yesterday, quizzed the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Ahmed Idris, over extra-budgetary expenditure worth more than N1.819 trillion in 2014 fiscal year.

The lawmakers summoned both the AGF, and the Auditor General of the Federation, Mr. Anthony Ayine, after expressing dissatisfaction and rejecting the response provided by the AGF to various queries issued by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation.

The breakdown of the extra-budgetary expenditure includes N54 billion borrowed fund for staff of PHCN in 2014 and N745.4 billion payment allegedly approved by President Goodluck Jonathan from the Natural Resources Fund account; N594.3 billion loan withdrawn from the Stabilisation Fund, which belonged to the three tiers of government.

It also include the sum of N73.5 billion paid in 2014, out of which N36.4 billion was released to the National Security

Adviser (NSA) for rehabilitation and construction of dam; N31.3 billion paid to an account which a political appointee was a signatory and additional sum of N2.8 billion paid for purchase of hand sanitizers.

The House said it was not satisfied by the explanation of the Accountant General that the closing balance that was not returned to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation was not government money, but money belonging to other agencies such as unions and taxes meant for other states.

The auditor general queried the accountant general’s office over the sum of N200.9 billion deducted from Federal Government’s share of the Federation Account, out of the total sum of N797.9 billion reported in the 2014 financial statement that showed the variance of N52.7 billion.

Ahmed disclosed in his response to various audit queries issued by the Auditor General of the Federation in 2014 financial year that the N54 billion was borrowed fund for staff of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in 2014 for payment of staff pension.