Stories by Jonathan Lois
A former Clerk of the House of Representatives, Deacon Patrick Giwa, over the weekend disclosed that reports of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly has not been considered in the past 25 years.
Giwa, the pioneer clerk of the PAC of the House of Representatives, said this during the inaugural meeting of the PAC of the 10th Assembly headed by Hon Bamidele Salam.
He was addressing members of the Committee to guide them as they resume their mandate.
He said the PAC of the 10th House to
has the responsibility to make sure their report is considered.
He said, “I am telling you fellow Nigerians, the PAC report has never considered its report for the past 25 years. They check out reports every year but they are not considered. I was in the forefront to draft the model of report for PAC. In fact it was my submission that was adopted by the West African Council of Public Accounts Committees because those people were backward and we were giving them leadership.
“But when we go to meetings they ask us to give reports on how we performed, both myself who was the clerk, the chairman PAC of the Senate, Chairman of PAC of the House, members from the House, we would just be looking at ourselves. Sometimes they talk to us to our face and ask us Nigeria were is your report? We come back to Nigeria with shame. For 25 years National Assembly has not considered PAC reports.
“PAC members do so much work. PAC is alway committed to doing so much work but at the end of the day there are not considered. Because I am the pioneer clerk of the committee, I make sure I do my reports. That was the training I gave my staff so they will not be blamed if reports are not considered.
“I did more than 200 reports and more that 2000 recommendations before I left PAC, but none of them have been considered,” he said.
He also called for support for the Office of the Auditor General to carry out their mandate.
He said the office had been poorly treated in the past.
He said PAC has for a very long time fought to improve the welfare of the Auditor General’s office.
“When they go to some agencies, they don’t even want to see them. I have had a case they were even attacked because they want to check the accounts of government. So PAC owes a responsibility to make sure the office is taken care of and given funds to perform. It took PAC years to fight for fairly good treatment for the office by government,” he said.
The PAC Chairman of the House, Hon Bamidele Salam, assured the committee will deliver on its mandate.
“I urge us to buckle up. This is the busiest committee of the House. This time we would work harder, smarter and in a manner that wil ensure we recover quite a whole lot of ground. There are lots of expectations from the leadership of the House and from Nigerians,” he said.
