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The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) has begun the probe of alleged extra-budgetary expenditure of over N600billion by 115 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on salaries and wages.
The probe is sequel to the audit queries raised by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation from 2018 till date which disclosed that 203 MDAs exceeded their personnel cost budget while 115 MDAs had zero personnel cost even though there was budgetary allocation for them.
It further revealed that the sources of extra funds for salaries and wages by the MDAs were not disclosed
Chairman of the committee, Busayo Oke frowned at the claim that some of the expenditures were incurred based on existing circulars and directives.
He said the reasons for zero personnel budget allocation for the 115 MDAs were not stated despite the fact that the MDAs under defence had annual budgets approved for them.
He called on the office of the Accountant General of the Federation to investigate the sources of the extra budgetary expenditures and reasons for non compliance with laid down financial regulations.
He said failure to justify sources and reasons for the expenditures, totalling N64billion, that the officers in charge of the funds should be held responsible.
He said what happened was an aberration and clear rape of financial regulations and public procurement act and that nobody had the power to appropriate any money to any MDAs except the National Assembly.
This, he said, should be through the budget from the President, before the passage of appropriation bill.
“But we have discovered a situation where some ministers and heads of MDAs are found of appropriating funds and approving several millions of naira for spending. This is without coming to the parliament, but relying on circulars and directives, this is illegal and we are going to stop,” he said.
He then directed the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Sylva Okolieaboh to make available the list of 115 MDAs involved in the suspicious spendings to the Committee by Nov 17.
Oke said in the spirit of fear hearing, the affected MDAs would be summoned to come and explained their own side of the story as claimed in the audit report.
