Officials flee venue of N2.9bn probe by Reps
A mild drama ensued at the House of Representatives on Thursday when officials of the Inter-Country Centre for Oral Health, Jos, Plateau State, fled the venue of a public hearing by the House Committee on Public Accounts.
The committee according to Punch report had summoned the Centre and other agencies, including the Nigerian Law Reform Commission, over the sum of N2.9bn the Budget Office of the Federation drew for them from the Service Wide Vote Account.
The money, the report stated was said to have been spent by the affected agencies between 2004 and 2012.
The Committee, headed by Hon. Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, had drilled officials of all the agencies in turns.
Fear gripped officials of the Centre after they witnessed the thorough drilling of the Secretary of the law commission, Mrs. A.F. Ogunneye, by lawmakers.
The commission was queried on how it spent the N191.3m it collected from the SWV during the years under review.
Punch reported that drama started when Hon. Olamilekan called on the officials of the Jos Centre to make their submissions.
It turned out that the officials had vanished from the venue of the hearing.
Olamilekan, the Committee Chairman instructed members of staff of the Committee’s Secretariat to search around the venue for the officials, but the effort yielded negative results.
However, Olamilekan, who expressed dismay over the development, ruled that the officials must appear before the committee.
He announced that a new date would be set for them to appear.
“They will have to come back, no matter what.
“This is a serious assignment and the committee will not condone any attempt to trivialise the investigation”, he added.
The committee also asked the law commission to reappear again within 72 hours to defend their oral presentation with documentary evidence.