.…Demands relevant documents on all expenditures
By Jeremiah Obaje, Abuja
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, (ATBU) Bauchi, Dr. Jibrin Yusuf, was today, Monday, 27th November , 2023, put under tremendous pressure while been grilled by the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The House committee opened a full scale probe into the alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 intervention funds from 2020 to 2023.
When all efforts made by his colleague who appeared with him to salvage the situation failed, the Committee directed the CMD to reappear before it on Thursday, 30th November, 2023 with relevant documents to back up the funds released to the institution during the period which he failed to give convincing explanations on how they were disbursed or deployed to handle the targeted purpose.
Earlier, Dr. Yusuf explained that the money made available to his hospital was used to build Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and an isolation centre running into several millions of Naira.
Things took a different dimension when he failed to adequately explain issues relating to tenders, statutory deductions from contractors, failure to attach appropriate invoices, significant disregard to procurement process as well as balance his accounts thereby leading to several financial infractions against extant rules.
The Chairman of the Committee Rep. Bamidele Salam (PDP-OSUN) warned that the Committee would not entertain delay tactics from the Ministries Departments and Agencies by way of asking for extension of time.
According to him, “the Committee is probing over 60 MDAs over several billions of Naira intervention funds allocated to them during the COVID-19 and we have given them enough time to prepare for this exercise, the Committee will not entertain any extension of time from any of the MDAs The Committee is not after any individual or groups, we are going to be diligent in carrying out our assignment”.
He pointed the Accountant General of the Federation whose office was very important to the assignment to make available relevant and competent personnel to the Committee to facilitate the assignment.
Other MDAs that appeared before the Committee included , Federal Ministry of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and Federal Ministry of Water Resources.
While grilling the Acting Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Communication Innovation and Digital Economy and the Procurement Officer , Mohammed Ibrahim and Mrs Margret Ebute the Committee members picked several holes in the documents submitted before it.
Consequently, the Committee directed the officials to go back and reappear with relevant documents, such as vouchers documentary evidence on the expenditure of the N3billion allocated for the Ministry during the period
The Committee also frowned on the awards of the several contracts on the same day and the claim of exclusive rights of certain contractors to provide certain Services without following principles of Federal character and due process
The Committee also faulted the claims of the ministry on the expenditure on training programes organized during the total lockdown in the country and directed it to provide relevant documents on it and the venues of such training programes.
