Reps summon ex NIPOST boss over unaudited account

By Christiana Ekpa

The House of Representatives yesterday summoned the immediate past head of the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST), Bisi Adegbuyi, over backlog of unaudited account of the agency since 2014.
The House Committee on Public Accounts took the decision when the Management of the Organization led by the Post Master General of the Federation, Ismail Adebayo Adewusi, appeared before it in Abuja at the two weeks resumption of the public hearing on refusal of Non-Treasury Funded and Partially Funded Agencies to Render their Audited Accounts covering the period between 2014 till date, to the Auditor General of the Federation.
Adewusi, who was grilled by the members of the Committee on why the agency had failed to remit its audited accounts to the Author General of the Federation for the years, told the Committee that he just resumed office recently and that frantic efforts were in top gears to get the audited accounts ready for submission.
In a swift reaction, the Committee described the submission as unacceptable to the parliament and insisted that the immediate past Post Master General of the Federation should be made to appear before it to account for his stewardship anywhere he is.
According to the Chairman of the Committee, Hon Oluwole Oke, “this is strange, this is not a private entity but a public one in which several billions of naira are being budgeted for every year, I think the former NIPOST boss must appear before this Committee to account for his stewardship.
“He owes Nigerians full explanations on how he expended their money, this is not a Banana Republic where anything goes”.
Consequently, the matter was stepped down and the Committee ordered Adewusi to produce the immediate past Post Master General of the Federation before it on a date to be communicated to him.
In a related development, the Committee also frowned over the inability of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) management to submit its audited accounts to the Auditor General of the Federation as at when due, describing it as a breach of the Constitution for a regulatory agency set up by law not to be accountable for the funds collected from the public.
Consequently, the Committee summoned both the past and the current managements of NERC to come and explain to Nigerians why they were not rendering accounts of their operations.