The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives has summoned the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu and other Directors at the Ministry over alleged frustration of the submission of the 2018 and 2019 financial audit reports by the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Imo State.
Chairman of the committee, Honourable Wole Oke, representing Obokon/Oriade Federal Constituency of Osun state (PDP) made the summon on Thursday while taking submissions on the audited accounts of the Polytechnic from its Rector, Dr Michael Arimanwa.
Dr Arimanwa told the Committee that he could not render audited accounts of the institution for the years under review.
He said, “Audit for 2018 and 2019, has not been done, because the tenure of the former External Auditor expired, and we had to engage another firm, but it had issues and the tenure of the former governing council elapsed, so we were told by the Ministry (of Education), that we should wait until a new Governing Council, is constituted.
The Rector also told the Committee that the Polytechnic generated about N4.9billion from 2018 to 2019, from the tuition of students and other services offered by the Polytechnic. However, he failed to give details of how the money was spent. He did not also provide details of what the school received as Tertiary Education Trust Fund grants from the Federal government.
The Committee besides lashing at the Minister of Education for what they said was a breach of section 85(3) of the 1999 constitution, also queried the Polytechnic’s expenditure of N653million in only two years(2018-2019) for Internet infrastructure Consultancy services.
The Committee further resolved to carry out oversight of the institution next week to ascertain the claims on certain projects, as contained in their presentation to the Committee.
