Reps issue one-week deadline to Danjuma to appear over query or face arrest

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has issued a one-week ultimatum to General Theophilus Danjuma, Executive Secretary, Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNEI), and Abdulahi Bichi, accounting officer of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), to appear before it in order to answer finance-related queries raised against them by the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF) or face arrest.

The ultimatum followed previous non-appearance despite summons.

At the hearing, members of the committee expressed their frustration that most agencies of government as well as many individuals had made it a habit to dishonour summons by the parliament.

In their separate contributions, Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai (PDP, Delta State) and Hon. Linus Okorie (PDP, Ebonyi State) suggested the invocation of Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution as amended to arrest the two men.

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But ruling on the issue, Chairman of the Committee, Hon Kingsley Chinda (PDP Rivers State), said that the relevant sections of the law would be applied if the invitees refused to appear next week.

“The attitude of some of these agencies is irresponsible particularly now that the fight against corruption is raging and some MDAs will neglect invitation to answer queries raised by AuGF.

“This committee Will not hesitate to invoke Sections 88 and89 particularly Section 89c if they fail to appear before us next week Tuesday and based on this the Secretariat is hereby directed to within the next 24hours send a letter of summon to them with a validly signed acknowledgment”, he said.

Also, the committee mandated the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to tender before it all VAT receipts collected between 2009 and 2010 by the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology.

The committee also summoned Ministry officials to appear before it with all relevant documents as raised by the AuGF’s office on Tuesday.

The decision, according to the committee, was to enable it verify four queries raised by the AuGF office over VATs charged by the Ministry and all the companies charged for the allocation of Spectrum licences.

The committee reached the decision when Gyar Iseni, Permanent Secretary of the ministry, could not respond to questions concerning VAT payments on Spectrum allocation to companies.

He said “since the Ministry was demerged from Ministry of Information it became difficult for us to have their details”

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