The Senate on Thursday ordered the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency to refund N356m spent without approval. This was as the agency failed to justify how and why it spent the money before the Senate Public Accounts Committee, headed by Senator Matthew Urhoghide.
The committee had invited the NDLEA over the alleged unapproved spending, and its failure to account for advances granted to some of its officials. The Senate panel investigating the matter anchored its action on the 2016 report of the Auditor General of the Federation. At the resumption of the hearing, the Urhoghide sustained the Auditor General’s queries on the alleged spending of N43 million on revocation and purchase of operational vehicles without approval, failure to refund N42 million cash advances, N12 million spent on renovation of Jigawa office without approval and purchase of N90 million operational vehicles without approval from the Ministerial Tender Board.
The panel also gave the NDLEA 24 hours to justify the spending of N169 million as a security vote they failed to provide as of the time of filing this report. The representative of the Director-General of the NDLEA, Abdullahi Shittu, made spirited efforts to defend the matter but the committee ordered a refund of the money.
