SAN FRANCISCO, January 19, (THEWILL) – The House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Account has alleged that N2.104 billion is missing from the Service Wide Vote released to the Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC) by the Budget Office in 2008.
But the Acting Director General of the Council, Dr. Husseni Doko Ibrahim, told the Committee that the Council never received such money from the Budget Office as claimed.
The office of the Auditor General of the Federation had queried the Council of not being able to account for the amount released to it from the Service Vote account being managed by the Presidency for emergency purposes.
The House Committee led by Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan worried by the development has demanded for relevant financial documentation of the Council which included among others, the revenue profile of the Council over the period under review, list of all contracts entered into and showing approving authorities, status of such contracts, as well as copies of vouchers raised in contract payments.
The committee also asked the RMRDC boss to look out specifically if there was any such transaction within the period under review where the council was asked to fund projects or purchases that were primarily the responsibility of the Council’s supervising ministry, Science and Technology Ministry and supply the name of the person who authorised such transactions,
The Committee directed that all the documents should reach it by Wednesday for further action.
But Ibrahim in his response said by the Act establishing the Council, it could not benefit from the vote and had never received any such amount of money from the Service Wide Vote account, saying the Council’s statutory sources of revenue is what accrued to it from the seven percent of imported raw materials into the country and another one percent derivation for research from the Federal Government.
He said since receiving the committee’s letter to appear before it on the subject, the Council had written to the Director-General of the Budget Office to furnish it with a letter of clearance for not having received or expended the sum of N2.14billion from the Service Wide Vote Account in 2008 but that the Council was yet to receive a reply from the Budget Office.
The Committee has instituted a statutory of enquiry into the financial transactions of the Council between 2010 and 2013 in order to clarify what really happened to the missing amount.
By Saint Mugaga, Abuja
