The Senate and the management of the South East Development Commission (SEDC) have argued over the spending and accountability of the 2025 budgetary votes currently in the agency’s care.

The Senate launched a far-reaching investigation into the SEDC, uncovering what lawmakers described as troubling expenditure patterns and opaque financial disclosures in the agency’s first months of operation.

Defending the commission, its Managing Director, Mark Okoye, rejected suggestions of financial impropriety, insisting that all expenditures were undertaken within approved guidelines and based on actual cash releases.

He defended the contract for the rehabilitation of its proposed headquarters in Enugu, insisting that funds linked to the project have not been released and that all procurement procedures were duly followed.

The probe, which places one of Nigeria’s newest intervention agencies under intense scrutiny, centres on the management of N16.6 billion released to the commission from its 2025 budget allocation and has ignited fresh concerns over transparency, fiscal discipline and accountability in public institutions entrusted with regional development.

At a tense oversight session in Abuja on Tuesday, members of the Senate Committee on the SEDC questioned several expenditure items contained in the agency’s financial report, including N153 million allegedly spent on a liaison office in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and another N2.5 billion listed under expenditure headings lawmakers said lacked adequate explanation.

The hearing quickly evolved into a broader interrogation of the commission’s financial management practices, with senators expressing concern that billions of naira earmarked for the economic transformation of the South-East may have been committed without sufficient public accountability.

Chairman of the committee, Orji Uzor Kalu, disclosed that records available to lawmakers showed that the commission received N16.6 billion in December 2025 but currently had only about N13 billion in its accounts, indicating that approximately N3.6 billion had already been expended.

Kalu faulted the financial statement presented by the commission, describing it as grossly inadequate for legislative scrutiny and incapable of providing lawmakers with a clear picture of how public funds had been utilised.

“This committee is disappointed with the financial report given, which is completely unacceptable,” Kalu declared, warning that every kobo released to the commission must be properly accounted for.

The committee’s concerns were reinforced by Senators Enyinnaya Abaribe, Victor Umeh, and Austin Akobundu, who questioned the rationale behind some of the expenditures and insisted that the agency provide detailed documentation to support every transaction undertaken since receiving federal allocations.

MEANWHILE, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has commended the Senate Committee on SEDC for what it described as a courageous, diligent, and constitutionally mandated exercise of legislative oversight in probing the commission’s financial activities.

HURIWA said the revelations emerging from the Senate investigative hearing on the management of over N16.6 billion released to the commission from the 2025 budget allocation raise disturbing questions that demand immediate intervention by anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies.

The rights group particularly expressed outrage over allegations presented before the Senate Committee that the commission allegedly expended N153 million on the rent of a one-room liaison office in Abuja and listed another N2.5 billion under what was reportedly categorised as implied expenditure.

According to HURIWA, such allegations, if established through investigation, represent a shocking abuse of public trust and a reckless deployment of scarce public resources at a time millions of citizens in the South-East region continue to grapple with poor infrastructure, youth unemployment, insecurity, inadequate healthcare facilities, and widespread economic hardship.

HURIWA said the Nigerian people are entitled to know how every kobo appropriated for regional development is spent, and that the allegations emerging from the Senate hearing are deeply troubling and demand an immediate, transparent, and independent investigation.

It noted that no public official entrusted with development funds should be allowed to treat public resources as personal assets.

HURIWA specifically called on the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately invite the Managing Director and relevant management officials of the SEDC for interrogation and forensic scrutiny of all expenditures made from the N16.6 billion allocation.