Senate threatens perm-sec with arrest warrant over SWV, missing N133m

The Senate has threatened the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mr. Mufutau Bello with a warrant of arrest by next week if he fails to provide sensitive documents related to the disbursement of Service Wide Votes, SWV and missing N113 million on salary adjustment for the Joint Admission Board Matriculation, JAMB

Specifically, the upper legislative chamber, through its Committee on Public Accounts on Tuesday gave 48 hours ultimatum to do the needful.

Chairman of the committee, chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide (PDP Edo South), had informed that a letter of appearance was sent to the ministry on October 20, 2022 which was received on October 21 also asked for details of releases to all the ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs including the Police and Armed Forces.

It was also learnt that another letter was written to the ministry on December 8, 2022, on the issue concerning the missing N113 million of salary augmentation for JAMB.

A record from the Office of Accountant General of the Federation, OAGF revealed that the N113 million was released to JAMB in May 2017 for salary augmentation.

Advertisement

In the letter, the ministry was invited to make clarification on the matter at stake at the committee’s room on Tuesday, but the ministry officials failed to appear.

Director of Finance and Accounts in JAMB, Mufutau Bello, who represented the agency, claimed that the N113 million was not released to them, arguing that if the money was released it would have cut across all MDAs using CONLESS throughout the year.

Irked by the absence of the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning Senator Urhoghide issued the 48 hours ultimatum to appear and provide the relevant documents to the committee or face a warrant of arrest by next week.

“The ministry officials have to appear before the committee by Thursday this week, since JAMB has denied knowledge of the release. We want to interface with them in your presence, the Cash Management Office has to come before this committee. This payment was used to clear the salary adjustment of 2017,” the chairman said.

He added that failure of the Permanent Secretary to appear on Thursday will lead to a warrant of arrest by next week.