The report, which was submitted Monday
by the Auditor-General of the Federation, Mr. Samuel Ukura, to the Clerk
of the National Assembly, Salisu Maikasuwa, also indicted the
management of the National Assembly and Nigeria’s foreign mission in the
United States of America.
Reacting to the report tuesday, the
Senate spokesman, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said the Senate Committee on
Public Accounts would investigate the allegations and ensure that any
indicted official is duly sanctioned.
However, he disagreed with the notion that the report had indicted the government agencies or their officials, pointing out that the audit report had only raised queries that could not be deemed an indictment yet until they are proven after the probe.
He said: “The Eighth Senate has chosen
to be different in line with what we have stated severally since we came
on board. For that reason, we came up with our legislative agenda to
make us different from the past because we are in the season and period
of change and we want to seriously key into that.
“Along that line, you could see the
courage that we have shown to make a difference from what obtained in
the past and on this note, we have passed the reports of some committees
like the one on the TSA (Treasury Single Account), which is a classic
example.
“Through that exercise, we were able to
save the country N7 billion. There are similar works that have been
done. We want to say that since we have chosen to be different, we urge
Nigerians to wait and see what we will make out of the investigation.
“Without holding fort for the past
assemblies, I want to say that it is not as if they had not been doing
anything about the past audit reports. But perhaps they did take their
action to the level that would have made a meaningful impact. If that is
what the auditor-general means, I agree with him.
“The auditor-general has raised some
queries. It is not an indictment. So when he raises his queries, the
essence is that the Public Accounts Committee will invite those parties
involved in the query and through the instruments of their own work,
investigate all the issues by seeking clarification and at the end of
the day, where there were infractions or infringements on certain
procedures, they would mete out appropriate sanctions as stipulated by
the extant rules and regulations to those responsible.
“When there is a process and someone has
done one part, until we conclusively finish that process, it will be
unfair to accuse anyone of wrongdoing. These are administrative
procedures and the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has made it clear
that we would take oversight functions far more seriously than what it
used to be in the past.
“If oversight functions are carried out
properly, some of these queries that we talk about will begin to reduce
because the essence is to see infractions before they happen.
“We as lawmakers will stop them before
another institution discovers the anomalies and brings them to our
notice. These are the powers of the National Assembly through oversight
functions.
“We are committed to ensuring that a
thorough job is done this time. We have demonstrated our capacity to
match our words with actions. Wait and see, it’s a promise and we have
four years to prove that we mean business”.
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