The House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts, on Tuesday, grilled the Commandant-General of the Federal Fire Service, Ibrahim Liman, on the over N1bn spent on recruitment and logistics from 2017 till date.
The committee is probing the service over audit queries issued against it by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, which said it discovered that there was only a recruitment exercise within the period under review. The committee was, however, not satisfied with the explanations made by Liman.
According to the committee, the CG failed to back up his explanations with relevant documents. The panel consequently resolved to write to the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bureau for Public Procurement to demand the account statements and expenditure of the service.
Several members of the panel also raised concerns over the award of several contracts by the Service. The Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, directed the fire service boss to produce the nominal roll of the FFS.
In a related development, several ministers summoned by the committee failed to appear at its investigative hearing on Tuesday.
The committee had on Tuesday last week given four ministers and their permanent secretaries as well as heads of finance and procurement, a seven-day ultimatum to appear before it or have the relevant laws invoked against them.
The affected ministers were Rauf Aregbesola (Interior), Ali Pantami (Communications and Digital Economy), Prof Osagie Ehanire (Health), Sharon Ikeazor (Environment), Babatunde Fashola (Works and Housing).
Oke said the lawmakers had been forced to report the affected officials to the Presidency, being their employer, after several failed attempts to make them to the said audit queries.
