Reps Grills Malami, AGF Over Missing Money From Recovered Loot

iexclusive News Nigeria reports that the Attorney General, Abubakar Malami and the Accountant General, Ahmed Idris, appeared before the committee on Tuesday over missing money from the recovered loot.

The investigative hearing is on the status of all recovered assets from 2002-2019.
The duo had sent representatives yesterday, however, they were re-summoned by the committee.

At the hearing, Mr Malami was accused of accepting money from the recovered loot to fund the budget of his office.

Malami had earlier claimed that no dime was given to his office from the asset recovery account.

The attorney general was visibly dumbfounded when he was confronted with a bank statement from the CBN.

The Chairman of the Committee, Adejoro Adeogun explained that it is unconstitutional to spend money from the recovered assets and that money can only be spent from the consolidated revenue account

Meanwhile, the accountant general bailed out Malami by claiming that under the TSA, consolidated, asset recovery accounts and other revenue accounts are now linked.

But Ahmed was unable to answer questions on the missing money.

The lawmakers observed discrepancies between the record of the OAGF and the bank statement obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Oladapo Olarewaju, a member of the committee faulted the accountant general for the discrepancies, “If there is any discrepancy, there must be a timeline. To say that discrepancy is normal, I do not agree with you.”

At this point, the accountant general had to request more time to reconcile his records.
Mr Ahmed was given till Thursday to reconcile his records and revert to the lawmakers.