The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has uncovered an secret account allegedly being operated by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).
According to the committee, the account is not among the three statutory ones being operated by the commission.
The discovery is contained in the three queries raised against the commission by the Office of Auditor General of the Federation for the year ended December 31, 2010.
In the audited report forwarded to the House of Representatives, the AGF accused ICRC of financial impropriety and urged the legislature to investigate alleged indiscretion of the commission.
The AGF further accused the commission of failure to remit N49.538 million operating surplus for 2009 to the nation’s consolidated revenue fund as well as N1.144 million withholding and value added tax (VAT) deductible from 16 payments totaling N12. 609 million made to contractors and not remitted to the tax authority.
Some lawmakers who got the document said the account with more than N3.5 million was domiciled in a new generation bank.
In his defence, the Director General of ICRC, Aminu Diko said the account, which the lawmakers were considering as secret was not actually so, stating that it was the commission’s project account being operated with the consent of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
According to Diko, the money in the account usually comes from the World Bank for the sole purpose of project implementation, stressing that the account had been in use as his predecessor, who was a signatory to it, handed over signatory rights to him upon assumption of office.
At its last meeting with the committee on July 18, 2013, based on the report of the AGF, the committee had requested the commission to avail it with bank statements for the three accounts it is operating, asset/revenue registers, expenditure incurred and amount received as subvention from the Federal Government as relates to accusation of non-remittance of operating surplus within the year under review.
Also regarding the accusation, the lawmakers requested photocopies of receipts issued for the bidding process, capital expenditure incurred in the year under review and nature of contract, amount involved, stages of the contract, amount paid so far, outstanding balance and the value of the contract.
On the alleged non-remittance of taxes from the 16 payments, the committee had further asked the commission to provide all bank vouchers, statements, evidence of reduction of WHT and VAT from 2009-2012, contract files in the N12.6 million value and full list of all contracts done in the years under review.
On the next adjourned date, which is yet to be made public, the committee said it would thoroughly examine the requested documents. The lawmakers urged the commission to ensure the availability of those that they have not yet forwarded to the secretariat of the committee.
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