Nigerian House of Reps last week

The House of Representatives last week announced that it has uncovered financial malpractices in some federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

The Green Chamber started the week vowing to shame MDAs that failed to submit their audit reports as due by law.

Firstly, the House Committee on Finance said it uncovered over N65 billion unpaid revenue remittances from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). Chairman of the committee, Abiodun Faleke, at a public hearing on Tuesday said the total expected revenue remittance from FAAN was N74.66 billion from 2014 to 2019, but only N9 billion was remitted.

At another session of the House Committee on Public Accounts with the University of Ibadan, the bursar of the school, Michael Alatise, said the institution failed to submit an audit report since 2014 because the auditor hired for the exercise “went blind.”

This did not go down well with the committee, headed by Oluwole Oke. It thus ordered a thorough investigation into the school’s books.

Next, the panel drilled the director-general of the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside.

Because Mr Peterside could not give satisfactory explanations on why the agency failed to submit its audited accounts to the Auditor-General of the Federation since 2014, the committee ordered a probe into the finances of the agency over the years.

On security, the House dedicated the whole of Wednesday to meeting military and police chiefs whom they had earlier called for their resignation.

Briefing journalists after the meeting which was held behind closed doors, Babajimi Benson, chairman of the House Committee on Defence, said insurgency has likely persisted in the country because foreign powers were backing the terrorists.