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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
House of Representatives joint committee on Anti-Corruption and Public Service Matters, yesterday, summoned all heads of Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to appear before it over allegations of corruption and bloated staff nominal rolls.
Co-chairman of the panel, Shehu Nicholas Garba, issued the summon at an investigative hearing over alleged padding of nominal roles by MDAs.
Garba said the committee would not entertain anyone below the rank of chief executive of MDA.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had told the panel that it recovered N189 billion of unspent wage balances from MDAs in two years.
A consultant with the ICPC, Bako Gad, who appeared on behalf of the commission said: “We discovered that almost every MDAs after paying wages at the end of very month, had huge volume of unspent balances. And how did they come up with these unspent balances, we also discovered that people retire, resign, sacked. By so doing, we recovered N42bn and N147bn unspent balances from MDAs in 2019 and 2020 respectively.”
Consequently, Garba who expressed displeasure that no head MDA was present at the hearing, said the committee will adjourn to a later date, for all those summoned to appear before it.
“A situation where almost 100 percent of what the country earns goes into recurrent expenditure, there will be nothing left for capital expenditure and the development of infrastructure. No doubt that the issue before this committee is monumental and serious which has even drawn the attention of the President who recently lamented the monumental corruption at the anti corruption conference.
