House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has pushed forward the probe of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) over alleged N1.19 billion extra-budgetary expenditure in the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years.
The committee discountenanced and stepped down hearing on the query directing the NIPC Executive Secretary, Saratu Umàr, to go back and familiarise herself with the documents and return to the panel at a later date.
Auditor General of the Federation had in an audit query explained that NIPC spent above its approved budgetary allocation for 2018 and 2019 respectively. The agency spent N700 million in 2018 as against the approved N194 million and N871 million in 2019 instead of the approved N180.6 million.
Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Wole Oke, during an investigative hearing, at the weekend, directed the management of the agency to explain the expenditure without an appropriation from the National Assembly.
A brief from the Public Accounts Committee, on the audit query, indicated that “N180.6 million was budgeted for overhead cost in 2019, but NIPC ended up spending N871 million excluding depreciation without the approval of the National Assembly.
“There was extra-budgetary spending on overhead in 2018 without supplementary approval from the National Assembly. N194 million appropriated but NIPC spent over N700 million,” the committee said.
