This is not the best of times for the Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Col. Dixon Dikio (rtd). He is on the hot seat for allegedly misappropriating over N3.9bn belonging to the agency.
On Tuesday, the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives, chaired by Mr Busayo Oke (PDP, Osun), claimed that the agency spent over N3.9bn without following laid down rules.
PAC pointed at 21 different queries raised by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation against PAP to substantiate its claim.
According to one of the audit reports, the agency paid the monies into a single account instead of the accounts of the ex-agitators – the supposed beneficiaries.
The auditor-general had also queried the agency for paying N136m to two different contractors, but the management could not give satisfactory account of the beneficiaries.
PAC ordered presentation of relevant documents on the contractors and the amount paid to each, failure of which the auditor’s query would be sustained.
In the third query, the auditor accused the agency of approving N79m for 11 persons as cash advance without retirement of the same till date, describing the action as gross violation of financial regulations of the Federal Government.
Hazarding defence, the Director of Finance and Accounts, Mr Ityohume Isaac, could not prove that the amount was retired, claiming that he was not in office when the incident happened.
Peeved by the development, the committee ruled that the amount should be refunded to government coffers immediately.
Not waiting to hear all the queries, Dikio pleaded with the committee to step down all to enable him and his men put their records in order before coming back to the panel.
His plea was granted.
However, Isaac claimed that the payments were made to the camp leaders of the former agitators, who in turn paid the monies to those under them.
The committee chairman ruled that the agency should provide relevant documents on the expenditures, detailing the number of beneficiaries, amount involved, their addresses and the names of the hotels used, which they claimed issued them receipts.
