The House Committee on Public Accounts has commenced investigation into the financial status of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
The NCAA is at the centre of the controversy surrounding the purchase of two bullet-proof limousine cars allegedly for the Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah.
This was announced by the Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Adeola Solomon (APC-Lagos) at a news briefing on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said that most Ministries and Agencies, especially those indicted by the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, had been dodging the invitation of the committee to answer queries.
According to him, the queries border on the inflow and outflow of revenues appropriated to them.
Solomon said that FAAN and NCAA had questions to answer regarding the purchase of the said bullet-proof vehicles.
He said that the committee, going by the report of the agencies and ministries from the 2004 to 2012, discovered that a lot of fraud had been going on in the system.
He said: “Many of these Federal Government agencies have one reason or the other to dodge their appearance before the committee for obvious reasons.”
The Chairman, however, said that the Committee had devised measures to compel agencies and ministers to honour its invitations.
“If you are on the sick bed, you have to show us a copy of a letter to show that you are unavoidably absent at the time.
“Any agency that fails to go in that direction, the committee will not hesitate to issue warrant of arrest to forcefully bring it to appear before the committee at a date to be specified by the committee.
“So, this is a new idea we have brought to it and we are working round the clock to ensure that that becomes effective”.
