Senate to arrest Finance Ministry Perm Sec over missing JAMB’s N113m

The Senate has threatened to issue an arrest warrant for the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning if the Director of Cash Departments does not show up to deliver sensitive documents regarding the distribution of Service Wide Votes and the missing N113 million on the salary adjustment for Joint Admission Board Matriculation (JAMB).

The threat became necessary since the Director had rejected three invitations, according to Senator Matthew Urhoghide (PDP, Edo South), chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, who was speaking on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to Urhoghide, the Committee sent a letter of appearance to the Ministry on October 20, 2022, and the Ministry received it on October 21, 2022.

The ministry was also to give details of release to all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, including Police and Armed Forces.

According to him, another letter was written to the Ministry on December 8, 2022, on the issue concerning missing N113 million of salary augmentation for JAMB.

Meanwhile, the office of Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) told the Committee that the N113 million was released to JAMB in May 2017 for salary augmentation.

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The representative of JAMB, Director of Finance and Administration, Mufutau Bello, told the Committee that the N113 million was not released to them, just as he argued that if the money was released, it would have cut across the whole year.

According to him, it would cut across all MDAs using CONLESS. If there is a shortfall in May, it will spread to the whole year.

Not happy with the development and frequent shunning of the Committee by the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Finance and the Director, Cash Management of the Ministry, Senator Urhoghide then gave the Permanent Secretary 48 hours to appear and provide the relevant documents to the Committee or face warrant of arrest by next week.