Senate Threatens to Recommend Removal of NNPC, FIRS, CBN Chiefs

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Mr Aliyu Wadada, warned that if the affected chief executives do not change for the better, the upper chamber of the National Assembly may recommend their removal from office.

Mr Wadada said some critical revenue-generating agencies failed to allow the panel to conduct necessary oversight functions and vowed to report and recommend their sacking to President Bola Tinubu.

Some of the agencies accused include the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, among others.

The Senate Committee chairman said the auditor-general’s report, which had been submitted to the committee, raised significant queries on the expenditure of some of the agencies.

The lawmaker said that the Senate would report heads of such agencies to the president after providing them with another opportunity to answer to the queries.

“All efforts to get Nigeria Customs Service to the table to know how this happened proved abortive.

“It is important for Nigerians to know what happened under ways and means, why Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) debited borrower and credited borrower.

“Central Bank of Nigeria debited consolidated revenue funds account and credited treasury single account which amounted to over N30 trillion.

“Consolidated revenue funds account is a government account, and the TSA is also a government account.

“And in charging the interest, instead of the interest to be charged to the treasury account, they went ahead again to charge the treasury account.

“They also went ahead to the treasury account and charged the consolidated revenue funds account, which now has amounted to over N6 trillion.

“There were correspondences among the committee, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, and the Debt Management Office (DMO) because of the faulty document, which they were not ready to answer and have been evasive about,” he said.

The federal lawmaker said that the report of the auditor-general for the federation, which queried the agencies, covered 2019 to date.

He also alleged that Nigeria Satellite Communications Limited had been invited for about nine times but failed to appear, adding that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) also fell into the category.