House Queries Ministry over N62m Alleged Dubai Trip, Mobile Phones Scam

Adedayo Akinwale ín Abuja

The House of Representatives has queried the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs over alleged training programme scheduled for the Dubai, United Arab Emirate, in 2014 at the cost N48 million.

The House Committee on Public Accounts also queried the ministry over the purchase of smart phones and tablets at the cost of N14 million without valid documents.

The committee said the expenditures were uncovered in the 2014 audit report of the Auditor General of the Federation (AGF), in which a query was sent to the ministry for explanation on the spent money.

But the ministry, in response to the AGF’s query, claimed it spent N48 million for a training programme for 23 members of its staff, though without any evidence that the training took place as claimed.

The chairman of the committee, Hon. Wole Oke, said from the documents before the committee: “There is no single receipt for the payments of airfares trip to and from Dubai, hotel accommodation, visas and what have you.

“We also discovered that the original company that made the submission for the Dubai trip was not the one the ministry made the payment to.

“As a parliament, this is not acceptable because it is against the financial regulation in the public service and we want to see all the necessary documents backing up the expenditure or the money will be refunded immediately.”

However, the permanent secretary pleaded that she was new in the ministry and noted that the query was also raised by the 8th National Assembly, which had been answered.

But she was overruled by the committee, which insisted that there was no record to show that the query had been closed.

The committee, therefore, gave the permanent secretary seven days within which to furnish the it the reasons the amount would not be refunded immediately.