The House of Representatives on Tuesday resolved to investigate alleged sleaze, misappropriation and non-profitability of the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited.
But NIGCOMSAT said its management ran the agency in a transparent way and that its books were opened to the public to scrutinise.
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The house’s decision followed a motion moved by House Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu.
He said: “It costs the Nigerian Government $340m of taxpayers money to build the NIGCOMSAT-l and a further N43.50bn from the Federal Allocation as running cost and another $127m as debt servicing to the Chinese Government, but there is little or nothing to show for these huge investments.”
Therefore, the house mandated its Committees on Information Technology and Finance to carry out a forensic audit of the activities of the NIGCOMSAT Limited from inception to date and report back in four weeks.
However, the country’s communications satellite agency said it was unfair to accuse its management of sleaze.
Its spokesman, Adamu Umar, told Daily Trust that even with the paucity of funds to run the company, the management had been recording some successes.
Even with its limited resources and lack of backup, Umar said, the agency had seen increased customer base in recent years with millions of naira going to Federal Government’s coffers in revenue.
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