The House of Representatives has ordered the Federal Ministry of Health to return the sum of ten billion Naira Covid-19 funds to the Federal government coffers.
This was at the investigative hearing on the Misappropriation of COVID-19 Funds by the House Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) chaired by Rep. Bamidele Salam on Thursday, in Abuja.
The chairman House Committee on Public Accounts, Hon. Bamidele Sallam gave the order when a team from the Ministry of Health, led by the Permanent Secretary, Ms. Daju Kachallom, appeared at the ongoing COVID-19 probe by the committee.
In his opening remarks, the chairman said that the committee was going to be firm and lawful. He urged all ministries appearing before the committee to be honest.
The chairman fumed at the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health for withholding information about ten billion naira from the committee.
“One very unacceptable thing you have done is to hold back that information on your presentation. The oath you took is to tell us the truth. The whole truth.
“If this question hadn’t been asked the Ministry of Health would have kept the sun of N10 billion, which was meant as COVID-19 to itself. You didn’t give us the whole truth.
“You should have included that in your dub motion presentation to let us know or to let Nigerians know that you have this sum of money that was released to you that you haven’t spent and haven’t returned back to the government.
“We expect you to submit evidence of the remittance of the fund back to the government within seven days and also supply evidence of return,” he added.
The committee also berated all heads of agencies who are in the habit of shunning National Assembly invitations.
“Anyone who fails to appear unjustly will not leave us with any choice than to use the instrumentality of our laws to deal with such a person,” Hon. Sallam said.
In the cause of interrogations by the committee, the Permanent Secretary revealed that the ten billion reported to have been missing by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation was still in the account of the ministry.
Ms. Kachollom distanced herself from the inflation as she asked the desk officer who handled the contract for the oxygen plants to give a detailed explanation to the Committee.
“I will not know at the time because I was there but I do know that at the time the exchange rate became very high.”
She said that the new leadership of the Ministry of Health plans to do things differently and openly.
She notes that the ministry has the certificate of no objections from the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE).
“I will like to state categorically sir, that I am not casting aspersion on anybody. But I will like to say that the new administration in the Federal Ministry of Health, is a new administration and we intend to superintendent over the Federal Ministry of Health openly for the all world to see.
“And things will be done differently. Differently in the sense that you will know what we are doing. Unfortunately, all the questions been raised, I only have what I have been told, because I was not there. On if we have BPP documents on other documents, I will they were here so that they can respond.
“Unfortunately this has caused a lot of issues, even within the federal Ministry of Health. The money is still there in the Federal Ministry of Health coffers.
“When I came on board we were informed that there is a 10bn COVID-19 fund that it has not been utilized. And it’s wad meant for production COVID-19 vaccine.”
While moving a motion for the return of the fund to the federal government, Hon. Olumide Osoba, said that the value of the money has reduced.
“The Federal government is short of funds. These funds, the values three years ago and the value right now are not the same.
“What we need for that money to be returned for that money be returned and utilized for very urgent national importance things. When you need funds you can apply for that fund again,” Hon. Osoba said.
The Committee also queried the discrepancies in figures approved by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) for the contracts of oxygen plants in some states from N1.329 billion that was earlier approved and to N1.5257 billion.
Lawmakers further observed that two offer letters were issued for the same contract which raised suspicions, especially as the earlier letter originally issued for the contract was not withdrawn because a second one was issued.
Responding to the queries, the Director of Finance, Ministry of Health, Mr. Francis Tysohona explained that the Federal Executive Council approved the sum of N1.5 billion which was augmented.
The Public Accounts Committee also ordered the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to refund 75 billion naira meant to mitigate the effects of covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
The committee also gave the Rural Electrification Agency, twenty-four hours to provide all necessary documents to back up monies released to it from the COVID intervention fund for medical facilities across the country.
SOURCE: VoN
