National Telescope national telescope newspaper
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee has ordered the Federal Fire Service to refund the sum of N1.48bn in one week to the Federation Account.
The directive was issued on Wednesday following the failure of the service to appear at the investigative hearing for the third time.
According to the committee, the agency could not account for the fund, being the intervention received for the COVID-19 health epidemic.
Speaking at the sitting, the Deputy Chairman of the committee, who moved the motion that the fund should be remitted to the Federal Account backslashes the management of the fire service for their failure to appear before the Committee.
He said, “So many other agencies have appeared before this committee, and the investigation is ongoing. I don’t see any reason why (sic) the fire service will ignore a committee like this.
“A public officer who fails to respond to the Auditor-General’s query satisfactorily within 21 days for failure to collect government revenue due shall be surcharged and be transferred to another schedule. Where an officer fails to give a satisfactory reply to an audit query within seven days for his failure to account for government revenue, such officer shall be surcharged for the full amount involved and such officers handed over to either the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission or the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.
“This Committee has a lot of assignments before it. The COVID-19 probe is just one; we have to move to other assignments.”
