By Tony Akowe and Nicholas Kalu, Abuja
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has begun investigations into the multi-million dollar debt owed by terminal operators and the failure by the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) to account for the money accruing to the Federal Government.
The Committee Chairman, Wole Oke, asked the management of the Nigeria Ports Authority to explain why such huge amount of money owed the Federal Government by the terminal operators had not been recovered and paid into government coffers.
The investigation is sequel to 12 audit queries from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation on the financial statement of the NPA for the 2019 financial year.
However, the NPA management has only responded to one of the 12 queries on the indebtedness of terminal operators to the government to the tune of $852.094 million and N1.897 billion.
The NPA said the sum of N269.410 million of the N1.8 billion had been recovered, while the balance of N1.6 billion “invoices processed on the encumbered areas remain unpaid”.