The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is investigating an alleged N1.25 billion extra-budgetary spending by the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Agency (NESREA) in 2019 without due process.
The committee disclosed this when the Director General (DG) of NESREA, Professor Aliyu Jauro, appeared before it.
The investigation is based on an audit query from the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation which is before the committee.
The Chairman of the committee, Wole Oke, who described the action as illegal and a total violation of the law, said there was no evidence that the budget of the agency was ever tabled before the house at plenary, debated or approved.
Oke, therefore, directed the clerk of the committee to write letters to the chairmen of the committees on environment of both senate and the House of Representatives to come and explain their roles in the passage of NESREA’s 2019 budget.
He also directed that letters be written to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, and the Clerk to the National Assembly, Ojo Olatunde, for them to prove that there were correspondences between the executive and the legislature on the budget for the year under review.
Responding, the DG claimed that NESREA had the mandate of the National Assembly to spend its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), insisting that the agency’s budget was approved by the National Assembly.
