Return N1.4bn COVID-19 fund, Reps tell Fire Service

The House of Representatives Public Account Committee (PAC) on Wednesday directed the Federal Fire Service to return the sum of N1.4 billion released to the agency as COVID-19 intervention funds to the Consolidated Revenue Account within seven days.

Chairman of the committee, Bamidele Salam, gave the directive following the failure of the Federal Fire Service to appear before the committee to answer queries in respect of the utilisation of the intervention funds after three consecutive invitations.

Daily Trust reports that the Federal Fire Service was invited to appear before the committee but the agency never honoured the invitation and did not send any letter to the committee on why it failed to respond to the invitations.

Salam directed the accounting officer of the Federal Fire Service to pay the money into the federal government’s coffer within seven days and bring the evidence of remittance to the committee for confirmation.

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The committee which frowned at the agency’s disregard for the parliament, threatened to invoke the relevant sanctions against it as stipulated by the constitution and the Public Service Rule.

The committee also directed that other agencies queried over their utilisations of the COVID-19 intervention funds but failed to honour their invitations must appear before the committee at the next sitting with relevant documents and respond to the queries to avoid further legislative actions against them.

The agencies include the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), N5bn; Accountant General of the Federation Office, N63.8bn; Ministry of Health, N53bn and Women Affairs Ministry, N1.25bn.