The Office of Accountant General of the Federation has been indicted by the Senate for failing to return short-term loans made from Special Funds Accounts totaling N910 billion to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
Following the submission of the 2017 Auditor General report, the parliamentarians claimed they learned of this following a careful examination by the Senate Public Accounts Committee, which is chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide.
Although the loans were intended to be short-term, the N910,039,557,742 total loans and debts emanating from Special Funds Accounts demonstrated that the balances remained unpaid throughout the year.
But, the Office of the Accountant General in its response claimed that several letters had been written to the Minister of Finance to authorise the settlement of the loans granted against allocations of various MDAs affected.
The AGF office also stated that it had asked the minister to include funds for the loan repayment in the 2017 budget.
The Urhoghide-led committee observed that the Executive was continuously misusing the Special money since withdrawals were consistently made for purposes other than those for which the money were intended.
The report read, “There is continuous abuse of the Special Funds by Executive as the withdrawals are continually made for political expediency outside the purpose which the funds were meant.”
The Senate, therefore, ordered that all outstanding loans should be recovered by the Accountant General of the Federation and evidence of recovery presented to the Auditor General and Senate Public Accounts Committee within 60 days.
