ABUJA—THE Senate has concluded plans to issue warrant of arrest on officials of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, over failure to account for N10 billion allegedly mismanaged .
The move was informed by refusal of the interim administrator of PAP, Col. Milland Dikio (retd), and his team to honour the invitation of the Committee on Public Accounts, led by Senator Matthew Urhoghide (Edo South).
According to a source, the committee had invited the PAP interim administrator and his team to appear before the panel, based on the query raised against the programme in the 2018 report of the Auditor-General of the Federation.
It was revealed that the PAP officials were billed to appear on February 3, having been sent a letter dated January 25.
They were said to have been invited in another letter, dated May 19, 2022, to appear on June 16 but failed to appear before the panel.
Vanguard gathered that the officials were invited for the third time in a letter dated June 28 to appear on July but gain failed to appear.
Speaking on the persistent refusal of the officials of PAP to appear before the panel, Urhoghide wondered how officials of a government agency who appeared before the National Assembly to secure appropriation approval would fail to appear before the same National Assembly to give account on how the money was spent.
He said the committee had no other option but to issue arrest warrant on the accounting officers of PAP.
He said: “They have consistently refused to appear before the committee, which is very unfortunate.
“We will issue warrant of arrest on the accounting officer of the PAP. We have been left with no other option than to issue warrant of arrest on the accounting officer of PAP..”
The query against the PAP officials read in part: “Audit observed that the sum of N324,969,190.00 was paid to some members of staff vide six payment vouchers for hosting ex-agitators, 150 leaders of ex-agitators, and logistics for various training etc in 2015 financial year.
“However, these vouchers and attached supporting documents revealed that the payments were made into a single person’s accounts on behalf of other beneficiaries, in contravention of the aforementioned provisions.”
