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The Senate has called for the sanction of the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, in accordance with Rule 3129 of the Financial Regulations and Public Service Rules 030402 over the diversion of funds from the Capital Projects Funds for purchase of Sallah/Christians welfare package to the staff of the Ministry.
The upper chamber also queried the sums of N46,645,000.00 and N56,418,135.00 for the printing of the Ministry’s letter-head and demanded that the sum be recovered and paid back to the treasury.
The various infractions, Senate noted, were in violation of Rule 3117.
Also, it faulted the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the alleged under-remittance of N3.8 trillion revenue from domestic crude oil sales to the Federation Account between January and December 2015.
It, therefore, urged the corporation to desist from further deduction at source, as the practice contravened Section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
It also mandated the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) or any other approving authority to urgently approve the agreed percentage which should be allocated to NNPC monthly, as operational cost to prevent its operations from being affected.
Senate’s decision was sequel to the adoption of 59 recommendations contained in the report of its Committee on Public Accounts on the Annual report of the Auditor-General for the Federation on the Accounts of the Federation for the year ended Dec. 31, 2015.
Senate also noted that the outstanding revenue collection from Solid Minerals not remitted to the Federation Account, but kept in an account maintained by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in contravention of provisions of Section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
It urged FAAC to fix a percentage to be allocated to Mining and Cadastral Office as cost of collection, as was currently applicable to Nigeria Custom Service (NCS) seven per cent, Department of Petroleum Resource’s (DPR ) four per cent and FIRS four per cent of non-oil revenue.
On unretired advances involving 39 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to the tune of N2.2 billion, the upper chamber demanded the sanctioning of Accounting Officers of the affected MDAs in accordance with the provision of Rule 3124 of Financial Regulations.
It gave the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, a deadline of 90 days to identify and sanction officers responsible for the mismanagement of public funds to the tune of N54.1 billion as exchange loss on external loans.
“The Accountant General is expected to report back to the Senate Committee on Public Accounts within 90 days,” it said.
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