Reps grill Immigration over accounts, alleged irregular contract award, others

The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee has queried the Nigeria Immigration Service for failing to submit its audited statement of accounts from 2014 to 2023.

The Service was also queried for spending N2 billion for a furnishing project, exceeding its threshold which is supposed to be N100 million for such project.

The Committee also grilled the Comptroller General of the Service, Kemi Nanna Nandap, for violations of financial regulations related to contract awards and account renditions on Tuesday.

The Controller General was represented by Deputy Controller General, Adah James Umanah, who appeared with the Assistant Comptroller of Immigration, Okwuone Patrick and an accountant, Ibanga Emem Brownson, among other senior officers.

Brownson told the Committee the Service had a threshold of N1 billion and below, but the representative of the Auditor General at the hearing said the NIS had an approval limit of N100 million for such projects.

The Immigration delegation could not give any reason why it exceeded their approval limit

They also failed to provide a Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval that authorised the spending of such an amount.

The hearing aimed to probe the utilisation of

a sum of N6.1 billion received by the Nigerian Immigration Service from the Service Wide Votes Special Intervention Fund which was not accounted for.

The Service got N1 billion each for 2021 and 2022 and after that received N4.1 billion for 2022 and 2023 according to the Committee’s Chairman, Rep Bamidele Salam.

Salam said they were also to be queried on the Auditor General’s report for 2020 which indicated three major queries against the Service.

This, Salam said, included the payment for the contract not executed to the tune of N350 million; regular payment on foreign tour to the tune of N252,400,158, as well as unapproved utilization of preliminary items to the tune of 755,310,543 Naira, totalling 1.2 billion Naira.

Salam added that for the 2021 Auditor General’s report, the Immigration was also to respond to five issues raised by the Auditor General.

“The first one has to do with denial of access to records of capital expenditure slash contracts to the tune of N12 million and N10 million Naira. Illegal custody of government motor vehicles N139 million, unapproved expenditure from revenue account N761, 977,585; irregularities in contract execution, N2,010,080,759. As well as funds appropriated for the store, not accounted for to the tune of N2,227,060,521, all totaling 18 billion Naira. That’s in 2021,” Salam said.

The Committee observed that the NIS awarded a contract valued at N2,010,080,759.65 to Julius Berger Nigeria Limited for the furnishing of the NIS Technology Building, located at its headquarters in Abuja.

The Committee’s investigation also revealed that a payment of N1.7 billion was made to Julius Berger Nigeria Limited for the furnishing of the technology building, but the required stamp duty was not deducted from this payment.

The CGI’s representative clarified that the N4.1 billion was transferred into the service’s account on December 30, 2022, but it was subsequently mopped on December 31, 2022.

She also confirmed that the N2 billion was used to settle outstanding debts with domestic contractors.

She admitted that the NIS had failed to deduct the stamp duty on the N1.7 billion payment made to Julius Berger.

In response, the Committee unanimously ordered the NIS to recover the N15 million stamp duty paid to Julius Berger and remit it to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) within seven days. They also instructed the service to provide evidence of the remittance to the Committee.

Additionally, the Public Accounts Committee gave the NIS seven days to submit proof of the rendition of its audited accounts for the period 2014 to 2023.

Moreover, the PAC directed the NIS to provide proof of Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval for the over N2 billion contract awarded to Julius Berger Nigeria Limited.

The PAC stated that the service is required to submit a response to the 8 queries raised by the Auditor General, 2020 and 2021, totaling N19.2 billion.

Brownson said they had made submissions on 2020 and 2021 the Auditor General’s report, but they were still fine-tuning it.

The response confused the lawmakers, who wondered how they could still be fine-tuning it after already submitting the reports.

Brownson also said the N4.1 billion paid into the Servicesl’s account was automatically reversed but the Committee demanded evidence which the Service did not have.

“You have not shown us here the presidential instruction, two billion is way above the threshold where you should pay. You have not shown to us where you have those approvals. So you can’t just bring papers here and think we will just take it as that. Two billion is way above what you can pay a contractor from immigration. And I’m sure you know that,” Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Ginger Onwusibe, queried.

The committee expressed dissatisfaction with the responses of the Service, saying they were inconsistent and inadequate.

“You don’t seem to be prepared for this hearing,” Onwusibe said.

Salam added, “Now this is a very fundamental issue. If you approved a contract above your approval limit, you have violated the Procurement Act as well as the financial regulation. And this is something that we don’t even take lightly at all in the Public Accounts Committee. We don’t take it lightly at all.

“Because there is a reason why the drafters of those laws and regulations have put several threshold limits for different layers of approving authorities.

“The Fiscal Responsibility Commission submitted a position paper to the Public Accounts Committee which claimed that the Nigeria Immigration Service has not submitted audited accounts from 2014 to 2023.

“If this claim is true, it’s another major violation of our laws and regulations. You just tell us now, if you are in compliance with submission of the audited account, to the Auditor General’s Office, FRC and other authorities that are empowered to receive such a report from you.”

The Committee Chairman directed that the Comptroller General must appear at the next hearing in person alongside the Director, Finance and Accounts of the Service.

The Committee resolved that they must appear on February 25, 2025, for the next hearing.

“It’s not excusable. We don’t take such matters lightly at all. It appears that the service is in contempt of Parliament.

“The Nigerian Immigration Service has defaulted in compliance with the regulation as to timely submission of audited accounts since 2014 to 2023 because there is nothing that shows otherwise from all that they have submitted here.

“The issue of non-remittance of operating surplus is very fundamental, especially now that Nigeria is operating on borrowed funds to fund our budget every year. Whatever our revenue appears to be leaking, we have to focus our attention on it. We’ll give you another seven days to submit evidence of rendition of audited accounts as at when due.

“Sincerely speaking, Madam Deputy Control General, the committee is not happy with your Service and the way you have not been responding.

“We are going to adjourn to Tuesday 25th of February for continuation of this hearing, we expect that the Comptroller General, the Director of Finance, and every other person who is a subject matter expert on these issues will also be in attendance. So we adjourn continuation till Tuesday 25th of February 2025 at 1pm,” Salam said.