Nasarawa government closes MDAs accounts for accountability

The Nasarawa State government has closed all accounts of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to enable it monitor and properly account for spent and unspent funds.

Accountant General (AG) of the state, Zakka Yakubu, said the action became necessary following refusal of the MDAs to comply with directive to account for their expenditures before closing transactions for 2017.

He gave the hint at his office in Lafia, the state capital, while speaking with The Guardian yesterday.

“We sent seculars to the MDA’s since December 4, 2017 asking them to send in their financial accounts on how much they received, what they spent and how much is left, but none of them responded.

“If we don’t take this hard measures government will loss lots of monies to privates pockets and we may not be able to account for them,” he said.

He added that other reasons for closing the MDAs accounts were to ensure balance in the state government’s accounts for 2017 before they are closed for the year.

“We are aware that there were funds released to the offices that were not unspent and so if we do not take this step, we will not know how much is left in each MDAs account,” he stated.

Yakubu further disclosed that in the course of investigation by his office to ensure compliance with Federal Government’s policy to freeze any account without Bank Verification Number (BVN), the state government discovered that there were so many government accounts that have money in them while others are redundant.

He also hinted that four banks were sealed in the state because they refused to remit interests and taxes to the state government for the past 10 years and had refused to allow officials of the state revenue board to verify the accounts.

He, therefore, urged those affected not to panic, as there was no intention to witch-hunt anybody but would ensure proper accountability for future records and planning.