By Umar Muhammad Puma
A mild drama occurred yesterday, at the sitting of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts, as the officials of the Inter-Country Centre for Oral Health, Jos, Plateau State, one the Agencies slated to appear before it took to their heels when it was time for the agency to take its turn.
The Committee, chaired by Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan had invited the agency along with others to appear before it over a sum of N2,993,269.00 released to it from the service-wide votes being managed by the Budget Office, on behalf of the Federal Government .
However, all the agencies slated for the yesterday’s sitting honoured the invitations extended to them, including the centre, but when its officials observed the rigorous drilling of the officials of the Nigeria Law Reforms Commission, by the members of the Committee, led by the Secretary, Mrs. A F Ogunneye, over the disbursement of the sum of N191,376,170,06 release made to the Commission from the same service-wide votes between 2004 and 2012, after which the Committee gave the Secretary a 72-hour ultimatum within which to reappear with all the relevant documents on the funds, when the Chairman of the Committee, Hon Olamilekan invited the officials of the Centre to take their seat, they were nowhere to be found.
Efforts to locate the fleeing officials of the Centre by the staff of the Secretariat proved abortive.
Reacting to the development, Hon Olamilekan said that the officials must appear before the Committee at a later date, to be determined soon, to answer to the public funds collected from the Budget Office.
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