Senate orders SEC to refund N593m ‘illegally’ spent on vehicles

The Senate yesterday ordered the Securities and Exchange Commission to return to the federation account, N593m it spent on purchase of vehicles for top management staff.

This followed the adoption of a report by the Senate Public Accounts Committee which probed government agencies’ expenditures using audit reports.

The Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation had, in a 2018 report, queried SEC over purchase of vehicles for its officials between 2013 and 2016.

The report said, “In 2013, the Director-General, while serving as Executive Commissioner, was paid the sum of N39m as monetized car allowance to run for four years, but two years, on his appointment as Director-General, he was again paid the sum of N84m as monetized car allowance.

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“In 2015, the commission procured four project vehicles to meet its need at the sum of N144 million, but instead of making use of the vehicles for purposes they were acquired, the Director-General and commissioners turned them to their sole uses, which contravened chapter 9 (1) & (11) of the commission’s condition of service.

“Also, the sum of N469m was further expended on the payment of the monetized motor vehicle insurance in 2015 and 2016.

“In the view of the foregoing, payment of N39m in 2013 and N84m in 2015, totaling N124m to the Director-General were not proper and cannot be considered as proper charges against public funds.”

Chairman, Senate Public Accounts Committee, Matthew Urhoghide, said the officials of SEC failed to appear before his panel to defend the allegations during the hearing.

He said his committee was left with no other option than to sustain the position of Auditor-General after the commission shunned several invitations extended to it.

The committee, in his report adopted by the Senate, recommended that the agency should be directed to recover the N124m and N469m paid as monetized car allowance and motor vehicle insurance from the beneficiaries.