The House of Representatives has threatened to issue a bench warrant for the arrest of heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government as well as those of private companies that have failed to honour summons from the House Committee on Public Accounts to respond to audit queries.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts, Wole Oke, said this at the resumed investigative hearing of the committee on audit queries issued by the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation.
The committee chairman said a list of those to be served with bench warrants was already before Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila.
He did not give the number of MDAs or companies involved in the alleged infringement.
Oke said it was disheartening that agencies of government that depend on public money refuse to account for such money when asked to, while some private companies refuse to also come forward to defend allegation of non-payment of money accruing to the government.
Stressing that the action of such agencies amounted to gross misconduct, Oke accused them of undermining the Public Accounts Committee.
He said: “A situation where we invite leadership of agencies and parastatals or heads of companies to cause appearance and they employ delay tactics by writing letters up to four times seeking extension is, in our opinion, gross misconduct.
“I think the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) should go after such misconducts because these audit queries were not authored by the Public Account Committee. They were authored by the Auditor General of the Federation and the leadership of MDAs are deploying delay tactics to undermine the Public Accounts Committee.
“The Accountant General came here and gave us a list of agencies that were invited to answer queries, even before coming here, and they refused to show up.
“You can’t take our money and when you are asked to come and account for it, you will be running away.
“The best Mr. President can do for you is to give you an opportunity to be of service to this nation. He cannot do the work for you. The best way to pay him back is not to undermine this country.
“The heads of these MDAs that have refused to honour our invitation, we have listed their names for warrant of arrest and it is pending before the Speaker.”
The committee summoned the Managing Director of Tin Can Island Container Terminal Limited to appear before it unfailingly at its next hearing on Thursday, November 24, 2022.
Oke frowned at the attitude of the managing director whom he said had never honoured the invitation of the committee but had consistently sent the company’s Legal Adviser to represent him “in contravention of the House rules”.
He directed the Clerk to the committee to issue a letter of summons to the managing director of Tin Can Island Container Terminal, saying if he fails to honour the summons, the committee would include his name in the list of those to be issued bench warrant.
The constitution empowers the Speaker to order the arrest of anybody who fails to honour a summons from the House through a bench warrant.
Oke adjourned further hearing till November 24 to allow the Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) appear before the committee.
He said: “The NPA cannot be seen to be running away when we are trying to recover money for them.”