Vital Documents Not Affected by Treasury House Fire Incident, Says Senator

Vital Documents Not Affected by Treasury House Fire Incident, Says Senator

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

The Senate on Wednesday said the fire incident that engulfed the office of the Accountant-General of the federation in Abuja did not destroy any vital document.

Chairman of the Senate committee on Finance, Senator Olamilekan Adeola, who stated this after an assessment visit to the office complex declared that there was no cause for alarm over the fire incident.

The Senator after being briefed by the Accountant General of the Federation Mr. Idris Ahmed and an inspection of the office burnt, said he came visiting following reports in the social media to see things for himself.

According to him, the fire was put out of the only office it affected in time before spreading to other offices on the fourth floor of the massive edifice housing over 1800 staff.

“After the meeting between the leadership of the National Assembly and members of the Executive on the effects of COVID19 on the economy where we got news of the fire, I came to see things for myself and I am happy to report that irreparable damage was not done to the building and more importantly documents burnt are easily retrivable as the main server of the office was not affected and only hardcopy of some capital projects which are online real time are affected,” he stated.

Adeola stressed the need for provision of fire trucks for the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to complement a Fire Station under construction in the vital complex adding that he expects that the agency will include it in its 2021 Budget proposal for Appropriation.

Speaking earlier, the Accountant-General informed the committee Chairman that the fire started as a result of electrical malfunction of the complex cooling system in the office housing some Capital Account documents adding that the Server of the office where documents are electronically stored are intact and burnt documents can easily be retrieved.

He commended the FCT Fires Service and over 25 Fire Trucks from NNPC, CBN, Julius Berger and the Army that came to the rescue when FCT Fire Service ran out of water adding that their efforts limited the structural damages to the insured building.

He recommended the setting up of an independent panel of inquiry by the Ministry of Finance saying the report will be made available to the National Assembly beyond the on the spot assessment of the Senator.

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