By Udora Orizu
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts yesterday queried the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of fifteen government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) over extra-budgetary expenditure.
The Chairman of the House Committee, Hon. Oluwole Oke and other lawmakers grilled the CEOs at an investigative hearing on the audit query report of the Auditor-General of the Federation to the committee.
Some notable agencies that made appearances before the committee include the Surveyors Registration Council of Nigeria (SURCON), the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Oke said the queries to the agencies were from the Auditor-General’s report on the financial statements issued by the office of the Accountant-General to the agencies pursuant to Section 85 of the 1999 Constitution.
He said that most of the agencies being queried by the committee have been summoned to shed light on the alleged extra-budgetary spending, running into millions and billions of Naira through their overhead budgets.
He also explained that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a query of an extra-budgetary expenditure of over N4 million while the Federal Civil Service Commission have an extra-budgetary expenditure of over N5 million.
