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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has begun a probe of Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) over alleged N1.19 billion extra-budgetary expenditure in the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years.
An audit query from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, had indicated that the NIPC had a budget of N194 million and N180.6 million in 2018 and 2019 respectively, but spent N700 million and N871 million respectively.
Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Wole Oke, during an investigative hearing, at the weekend, directed the management of the agency to provide explanation on the expenditure without appropriation from the National Assembly.
A brief from the Public Accounts Committee, on the audit query, indicated that “N180.6 million was budgeted for overhead cost in 2019, but NIPC ended up spending N871 million excluding depreciation without the approval of the National Assembly.
“There was extra budgetary spending on overhead in 2018 without supplementary approval from the National Assembly. N194 million appropriated but NIPC spent over N700 million,” the committee said.
The committee rejected the response of the agency on the query, stating that the supporting documents were neither signed nor authenticated by the relevant authority. Consequently, it stepped down hearing on the query and directed the NIPC Executive Secretary, Saratu Umàr, to go back and familiarise herself with the documents and return to the panel at a latter date.
