Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives, has given management of the 17 subsidiaries of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) a seven day ultimatum to appear before it over the non-rendition of financial accounts for years.
Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, who gave the order, following absence of management representatives of the affected agencies at the resumed investigative hearing on audit queries against them, declared that failure to appear before the committee would lead to issuance of a bench warrant of arrest against heads of the agencies.
Oke said : “They are to appear before the committee on the investigative hearing on the several audit queries raised against them by the Auditor General of the Federation over the years”, noting that the committee had just discovered that while MDAs of the federal government were operating on the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the NNPC has been using its subsidiaries to operate commercial bank accounts without the knowledge of the Accountant General of the Federation.
The committee and the NNPC had for sometime appeared to have a rift over the failure of the latter to cause appearance to answer questions over how their funds are being managed.
The committee also accused the NNPC of shielding its subsidiaries by not allowing them to appear before it to answer queries on their financial operations.
Chief Financial Officer of the NNPC, Umar Isa Ajiya, had weeks ago appeared before the committee and submitted that the corporation was going to speak on behalf of the subsidiaries, a position that was rejected by the panel, which insisted that the subsidiaries were legal entities and must speak on their own.
Last week, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, eventually turned up in person, after several failed expectations, to answer the audit queries.
