Udora Orizu in Abuja
House of Representatives Wednesday summoned the immediate past Post Master General of Nigeria, Mr. Bisi Adegbuyi, over the backlog of unaudited accounts of the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) since 2014 till date.
House Committee on Public Accounts took the decision when the management of the organisation led by the incumbent Post Master General, Dr. Ismail Adebayo Adewusi, appeared before it in Abuja at the resumed public hearing on refusal of non-treasury funded and partially funded agencies to render their audited accounts covering the period 2014 till date to the Auditor-General of the Federation.
Adewusi, when grilled by members of the committee on why the agency had failed to remit its audited accounts to the Author General of the Federation for years, said that he just resumed office recently and that frantic efforts were in top gear to get the audited accounts ready for submissions.
Reacting, the committee described the submission as unacceptable and insisted that the immediate past Post Master General should be made to appear before it to account for his stewardship anywhere he might be.
The Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, stated that the former post master owes Nigerians full explanations on how he expended their money.
“This is not a banana republic where anything goes. 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 Post Master General must appear before this committee to account for his stewardship,” Oke said.
Consequently, the matter was stepped down and the committee ordered Adewusi to produce the immediate past Post Master General before it on date to be communicated to him.
Similarly, the committee 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 by law not to be accountable for the funds collected from the public.
The committee also 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.
