By Matthew Tabe
In a bid to ensure transparency and accountability, the Senate Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday, December 13, 2022, issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, to appear before it over unverifiable disbursement of N113 million from Service Wide Vote (SWV) for payment of Salary Adjustment to Staff of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) or risk arrest.
Trouble came the way of the Finance Ministry when a representative of JAMB, Director of Finance and Account, Muftau Bello, told the committee that the N113 million was not released to them, arguing that if the money were released, it will cut across the whole 2017 and not just in May of the year stated in the records of the Accountant General.
Angered by the absence of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Chairman of the Committee, Senator Urhoghide, issued the ultimatum for his appearance and the provision of relevant documents to the Committee or face arrest by next week.
“They have to appear before the Committee by Thursday this week, since JAMB has denied knowledge of that release. We want to interface with them in your presence (Cash Management Office has to come before this Committee). This payment was used to clear salary adjustment of 2017,” he said.
He further said the committee had earlier written a letter of appearance to the Ministry on 20th of October, 2022 and the letter was received on 21 October, 2022 by the ministry to give details of release of SWV to all MDAs including the Police and Armed Forces.
According to him, another letter was written to the Ministry on December 8, 2022, on the issue concerning missing N113 million of salary augmentation for JAMB.
“While the record from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) revealed that the N113 million was released to JAMB in May 2017 for salary augmentation, submission made here by the JAMB representative proved otherwise,” he stressed.