By Nura Salami
[T]he Senate has said it would carry out thorough investigation into the audit report submitted to the Clerk of the National Assembly on Monday by the Auditor-General of the Federation, Samuel Ukura.
The report had said that N3.2 trillion was allegedly not remitted to the Federation Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
Senate spokesman, Abdullahi Sabi, said on Tuesday that the lawmakers would stop at nothing to probe the audit report.
Senator Sabi, who spoke to newsmen in Abuja, said the intending probe of the report was in line with the resolve of the 8th Senate to stand itself out from the past ones. “The 8th Senate has chosen to be different as we have stated severally since we came on board and for which we came up with our legislative agenda to make us different from the past. This is because we are in the season and period of change and we want to seriously key in to that. “Along that line, you could see the courage that we have to make some differences from what was obtained in the past and on this note, we have passed reports of some committees such as the Treasury Single Account, TSA, which is a classical example.
“Through that exercise, we were able to save the country N7 billion. There are similar works that have been done. We want to say that since we have chosen to be different, we urge Nigerians to wait and see what we will make out of the investigation. “Without holding forth for the past assemblies, I want to say that it is not as if they have not been doing anything about the past audit reports, perhaps they have not taken their action up to the scale that would have made a huge impact that people want to see.
“If that is what the Auditor-General meant, I agree with him. The Auditor-General is raising a query, it is not an indictment. So, when he raises his queries, the essence of the Public Accounts Committee is to invite those parties involved in the query and through the instruments of their own work , investigate all the issues by seeking for clarification.
“At the end of the day, where they have infractions or infringement on certain procedures, they met out appropriate sanctions as stipulated by extant rules and regulations,” he said.
