Rivers State House of Assembly has issued a warrant of arrest for the Vice Chancellor of PAMO University of Medical Sciences, following his repeated failure to appear before the House Adhoc Committee investigating the disbursement of scholarship funds to the institution.

The resolution was reached on Friday, during the 53rd Legislative Sitting, as the lawmakers considered the report of the Adhoc Committee set up to investigate the scholarship scheme involving the Rivers State Government and PAMO University.

The resolutions were contained in a statement by Martins Wachukwu, Special Assistant on Media to the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

The committee, chaired by the Deputy Leader of the House, Dumle Maol, had invited the vice chancellor on several occasions to explain how funds released to the university under the scholarship arrangement were utilised.

According to the report presented to the House, the university received more than ₦29 billion from the Rivers State Government under the scholarship scheme.

The report, however, stated that the funds received were not matched by corresponding student enrolment figures, raising questions over the utilisation and accountability of the money released by the state government.

The Assembly subsequently resolved to issue a warrant of arrest for the Vice Chancellor, in line with the recommendation contained in the committee’s report.

The House also urged the Rivers State Government to establish a funds recovery committee to identify and recover all unaccounted funds allegedly in the possession of PAMO University and return the recovered money to the state’s Consolidated Revenue Account.

Presenting the committee’s findings, Maol detailed the financial transactions between the state government and the university and raised concerns over discrepancies in the records presented by government agencies.

The Speaker of the House, Martin Chike Amaewhule, said the scholarship agreement was entered into with a good intention by the government, but expressed concern over what he described as problems with its implementation.

Amaewhule particularly questioned discrepancies among documents submitted by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education and the Office of the Accountant-General of the State.

According to the Speaker, the documents were not consistent in their accounting of the funds released to the university.

He further stated that, based on the Assembly’s assessment of the records before it, only about ₦5 billion of the more than ₦29 billion released to PAMO University appeared to have been utilised.

The speaker said the figures and discrepancies contained in the committee’s report required the Assembly to take steps to establish accountability for the funds.

Amaewhule also reaffirmed the determination of the Assembly under his leadership to exercise its constitutional responsibilities irrespective of the individuals or institutions involved.

He stressed that no individual could be bigger than the House as an institution empowered by the Constitution.

The latest resolution followed earlier proceedings in which the Assembly had sought the appearance of officials connected to the scholarship arrangement to provide explanations on the disbursement and utilisation of the funds.

The House’s action now places the PAMO University Vice Chancellor at the centre of the Assembly’s enforcement of its investigation into the scholarship scheme, while the proposed recovery committee would be expected to trace and recover funds the lawmakers consider unaccounted for.