The House of Representatives’ Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday accused the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd of shielding its subsidiaries from honouring several Parliaments’ Summons extended to them over alleged financial infractions running to several trillions of Naira over the years.

The Committee disclosed this when the Management of the NNPC led by its Chief Finacial Officer, CFO, Mallam Umar Ajiya, who represented the Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari appeared before it on numerous queries raised against the Agency by the office of the Auditor General for the Federation.

The panel members expressed displeasure over the failure of the NNPC and its subsidiaries to honour all the invitations that were extended to them on the various audit queries bordering on “gross violation of financial regulations and non-rendition of financial accounts as and when due”.

The panel said that consequently, it had resolved to extract the entire queries from the Audit Reports and publish them in the National Dailies for the general public as well as the presidency to see how the people saddled with the responsibility of running the agencies are running them.

The members declared that the Ninth Assembly would no longer tolerate such “lukewarm” attitudes from heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government in the overall interest of the nation.

“We are not here to persecute anybody or any Agency, it is just for the principle of fair hearing we are inviting the MDAs to defend the queries raised against them by the office of the Auditor General for the Federation.”

“We are calling you to appear before us over the queries, if you don’t come, we have no other option than to uphold the queries, if you don’t have something to hide, why are you running away from the parliament?” they queried.

The panel, therefore, directed the Clerk to channel fresh letters of summons for the heads of the subsidiaries through the GMD and that each letter should contain synopsis of the audit queries as it affects each of the subsidiaries.

The resolution also added that the GMD should personally lead the heads of the subsidiaries to the hearing to respond to the queries on the day they are to appear

In his response, the Chief Financial Officer, Mallam Ajiya pleaded with the Committee that the Management would never have any reason to shield the heads of its subsidiaries

He said the GMD himself had planned to appear in person before the Committee on Tuesday but for certain circumstances beyond his control, assuring that henceforth the story would not be the same again. (Daily Independent)

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