Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu’s Senate Committee on Public Account has mandated the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to transfer N62.2 billion naira to the federation account.
The committee members spoke briefly to the press following their meeting with the agencies in Abuja.
Senator Wadada Aliyu emphasizes that the Auditor General of the Federation (AGF) reports should be viewed not as punitive measures or witch-hunts, but rather as a constitutional obligation aimed at fostering accountability and transparency in the administration of public agencies.
Explaining how and why they found the NPA wanton, the committee chairman said:
- “The NPA has been found wanton on the AGF’s annual report and also erred on the status enquiry. There are issues that arose in the Boney, Calabar and Lagos Channels Management.”
The committee conveyed that it had respectfully written to the NPA management to address the issues. However, they expressed regret, noting that while some communications received responses, others remained unanswered.
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In addition, the committee noted that, apart from the General Manager, who arrived significantly late citing medication as the reason, none of the management officers bothered to attend despite repeated calls from the Committee to respond to the AGF’s report.
Aliyu noted with concern that there were also issues of other indebtedness arising from shipping dues, among others amounting to about $68 million.
In its statement, he emphasized that the sums of money mentioned were not implicated in the anomalies observed in the Boney, Calabar, and Lagos Channels Managements.
The Committee therefore gave 48 hours to the management NPA to appear before or face the wrath of the law.
In the same vein, based on what the Committee saw as financial irregularities in the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), it ordered the agency to remit about N64 billion to the federation account.
Meanwhile, the committee accepted the NCS request that they will come back on December 19th, 2023, with all remittance receipts requested, by the committee.
