The Senate Public Account Committee has sustained a query which indicted a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources of awarding N145m meant for the media campaign on the Petroleum Industrial Bill to himself.

The official was expected to award the contract to competent and technically experienced companies.

The query is contained in the 2015 Auditor General for the Federation report currently being scrutinised by SPAC chaired by Senator Matthew Urhoghide.

The query reads, “ The total sum of N145m was approved by the Ministerial Tender Board and paid to a management staff for electronic bill board advertisement, television jingles and newspapers publication.

“It is meant to create campaign awareness for the Petroleum Industry Bill.

“The contract award should have been made to competent and technically experienced companies through open competitive bidding in order to ensure transparency and accountability.

“Invoices and receipts of payment, which should be from the purported companies and agencies, whose services were engaged in the implementation of the programme, were not tendered for audit. “

The Chairman of the Committee at the panel sitting on Thursday asked the representative of Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Godwin Akubo to respond to the allegation.

The Ministry said, “The Director of Press Affairs, has a wealth of experience with coverage.

“His involvement bridged the gap between the ministry and media houses based on the public relations.

“He helped to fast track and reached out to target audience in good time therefore, his service was a blessing to the Ministry.”

Akubo was however, unable to tender invoices and receipts of the N145m which the ministry spent to carry out the Petroleum Industry Bill media campaign.

Urhoghide, however, announced the sustenance of the query and demanded the refund of the N145m to the federation account.

NaijaFutbol:
Alooter Continua!

seunmsg:
That the senate public accounts committee is just conducting a public hearing on 2015 auditor general’s report says a lot about how serious we are about fighting corruption. The OAUGF has already released the 2016, 2017 and 2018 audit report but we are still on 2015 in 2020.

Even at that, they would play around with the issue at the public hearing and then reach a compromise behind camera. At the end of the day, nothing will come out of this just like all others.


Until the part of the constitution that deals with how audit report should be treated is amended or the Federal audit bill is passed, nothing will come out of Auditor General’s annual report no matter the effort put into it by Auditor General and his team.

blackpanda:


Forget report or constitution. The truth is that the whole system is engineered to fail.

You can never become a permanent secretary without proper lobby/political & financial settlement. U spend millions to get the position, so won't u recover?

Let's not play the ostrich. With the poor salaries and devastating working environment, nobody can tell me the won't chop if given the opportunity. Abi u will pay rent, school fees and feed your community with what

blackpanda:
Noise

Many will rush here to judge and castigate when in actuality 100% of Nigerians wish they had opportunity to loot. The anger is not really at the looting, but the fact that u are not the one chopping.

When your uncle or community leader who is a permanent secretary gets to d village, y'all will line up begging for money for one mysterious problem or the other. Where do u think the money comes from

Hypocrites!

Esseite:
For Nigeria to survive, it needs to take a very hard measure on corruption.

dre11:

Akubo was however, unable to tender invoices and receipts of the N145m which the ministry spent to carry out the Petroleum Industry Bill media campaign.
https://punchng.com/civil-servant-paid-self-n145m-pib-media-fund-senate/

Moferere:


Auditor General:
Ministry of Petroleum spent N14.5 millions on Biros, N46 millions on letter head — The Cable.


Me:
Who is the Minister of Petroleum?


When we get an answer to the question above, then we will identify the role model of this civil servant

Don't mind them!

When Tinubu steals, they say "atleast he invested it back into Nigeria"

When the house of reps are stealing the country blind without anything to show for it, they say "don't mind the money we are collecting, look somewhere else "

There's no measure put in place for high profiled thieves to be punished so as to serve as a deterrent for those who might wish to steal from Nigeria

You will be surprised that the Senate only saw this guy because they don't have a cut in it!

Give them their own cut and this case will die a natural death!!!

Nigerian is governed by sophisticated hardened criminals

Nigerian leaders are the worst in this planet called Earth!!!

Moferere:


What did they say when Nnamani, Ohakim and Kalu steal?

I am not playing the Tribalistic card with you!

Didn't Fashola reject pension from LASG

The House of reps houses every tribe

So give yourself brain!!!

Mtcheeeeeew

seunmsg:


I can’t honestly disagree with your points. Truly, there is a systemic problem that needs to be fixed.