Acting Accountant-General, Sylva Ololieboh Governor, Godwin Emefiele
By Our Reporter
The Senate Committee on Finance is set to investigate the Acting Accountant General of the Federation, Okolieboh Sylva, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele and a service provider, REMITTA over alleged unremitted deducted charges into the Federation Account.
The acting Accountant General who appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance on Friday to defend the budget of his office came under scrutiny when he could not provide satisfactory answers to questions raised by the lawmakers about the disbursements and utilisation of the billions of Naira allegedly raised through the payment platform in the last 10 years.
Sylva had told the lawmakers that even though his office was in charge of the Remitta payment platform, the office did not receive any amount from the service charge which, according to him, was shared between the CBN, commercial banks, and the service provider, REMITTA.
But the Senate Committee led by its Chairman, Senator Solomon Olamilekan (APC, Lagos West), was not satisfied with the Acting Accountant General’s explanation, as the lawmakers found it “strange” that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation received nothing from the billions of money deducted even though the platform belonged to it.
On that background, the Chairman of the Senate Committee ordered a full-scale investigation to unravel the mystery surrounding the “unremitted” money.
The lawmakers further summoned the CBN Governor, Emefiele, the Office of the AGF and the service provider, REMITTA to appear before it unfailingly on November 16 for explanations.
They also ordered the Acting AGF to provide details of all the bank accounts of the office till date in the next week and threatened to step down the Office’s budget defense if it failed to come up with the accounts.
The Senate Committee noted that it decided to pay special attention on the books of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation as a result of recent allegation of corruption that characterised the tenure of the immediate past Accountant General, Ahmed Idris, who is currently facing charges of money laundering with the Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC).
