From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has ordered the Managing Director of the Bank of Industry (BoI), Mr. Olukayode Pitan, to appear before it today unfailingly or risk arrest.
Chairman of the committee, Kingsley Chinda, gave the order yesterday after the Chief Financial Officer of the bank, Mr. Taiwo Kolawole, told the committee that Pitan could not come before it because he had an engagement with some officials of Enugu State government.
Kolawole, who admitted that the bank got the second invitation from the committee on July 28, said the meeting with the Enugu State government officials had been scheduled before they got the invitation.
Chinda said, “over N8 billion loan given out has not been recovered and the bank is not doing anything about it, according to the query. The second query is on another N2 billion unexplained expenditure.”
He added that “considering the enormity of the sum involved, over N11 billion as contained in the query by the Auditor General of the Federation, and considering the fact that the Managing Director has given more importance to a meeting with Enugu State government, we are tempted to take action as appropriate but in the spirit of fair hearing, we want to give him another opportunity so that he can appear before us tomorrow, August 18, 2017, by 11 am, failing which we will order for his arrest.”
Similarly, the House committee also ordered the Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture (BoA), Kabir Mohammed Adamu, to reappear before it today to respond to queries against the organisation.
The Executive Director, Regional Banking of the bank, Mr. Emmanuel Ameh, had told the committee that Adamu, who came to the National Assembly, left to attend a meeting with officials of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank, over loan facilities the bank is seeking.