Reps summon auditor general over Ogun/Osun river basin accounts

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts yesterday summoned the Auditor General of the Federation, Anthony Anyine, and the president of the Association of National Accountants of Nigerian (ANAN) over the alleged infractions uncovered in the audited financial accounts of the Ogun Osun River Basin Authority (OORBA).

The panel made the order in Abuja when the management of the agency, led by its Managing Director, Olufemi Odumosun, appeared before it at the resumed hearing of the probe of over 300 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) over non-rendition of financial accounts to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation from 2014 till date.

Chairman of the committee, Wole Oke, ordered that the duo should appear before the panel by 11:00am today, failure which would force the lawmakers to issue a bench warrant against them to the Inspector General.

Odumosu, who appeared before the committee two weeks ago, was directed to return to clarify while the organisation’s 2015 audited account, submitted in 2017, was not stamped to authenticate.

Though he had appeared before the legislators with another copy of the document signed and stamped in 2020 by the same office, saying he went back to the office to perfect the process since there was a clear evidence that the financial account for the period was actually submitted to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation.

Irked by the development, the committee members raised the alarm as to why the OORDA boss went behind the door to stamp a financial account submitted since 2017 in 2020, some four years later.

Consequently, the committee took up the representatives of the Auditor General of the Federation and the Accountant General of the Federation over the authenticity of the claim.

Oke specifically demanded that the OORBD chief executive should produce a copy of the letter written to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation requesting that the 2015 audited financial account earlier submitted in 2017 should be signed and stamped in 2020.

Odumosu, however, could not produce any, hence the panel described the action as “mystery and a gross violation of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).