Agencies of the Federal Government which allegedly benefitted in alleged secret withdrawal of N875 billion from the Service Wide Vote (SWV), refused to appear before the Senate Public Account Committee, currently probing the matter.
Some of the affected 14 institutions and agencies were, the Defence Headquarters, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Assets Management Company of Nigeria, Budget Office among others.
The Senate Panel led by Senator Mathew Urhoghide ( PDP Edo South) , was probing the collection of N857bn from the SWV that some agencies collected from the fund, some of which were even bigger than their annual budget.
The Committee is specifically looking into the utilisation of the SWV between 2017 and 2021 which is about N5trn.
Over 200 agencies are expected to defend the utilization of the fund secretly collected without involving the National Assembly Committees mandated by the Constitution to oversight them.
Urhoghide lamented the attitude of the agencies that ignored…
