Philip Nyam 
The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has summoned the Head of Service of the Federation (HOSF), Mrs Folasade Esan over the controversy regarding top officials in the directorate cadre to fill the vacant position of the Auditor General of the Federation.
Chairman of the PAC, Hon. Oluwole Oke (PDP, Osun) issued the summon at the weekend after grilling the top officials of the office of the Auditor General of the Federation over the delay in the appointment of a substantive Auditor-General of the Federation.
According to Oke, “The parliament is not a busy body, which is poke nosing into internal issues like this but we are acting on a petition laid before this constitutional committee of the House of Representatives.
” We are having a backlog of audited accounts of the Federation for the years 2020, 2021, and 2022, which are yet to be laid before the National Assembly because of the absence of a substantive Auditor General of the Federation who is to sign them.
“We cannot allow this to continue like this, having listened to all your submissions and relevant documents before this honourable committee, we are inviting the Head of Service of the Federation to come and speak to the documents and clarify other things that will guide us to resolve the Issues at stake accordingly
” Nigeria is not a Banana Republic, we have laws and we will go by those laws in resolving this matter nobody is going to be short-changed”, he stated.
The Head of Service is to appear before the committee on Tuesday and is expected to clarify the issue of seniority amongst the directors; their appointment dates and the issue of two different contradicting official memos from the Federal Civil Service Commission within 24 hours, which had further halted the selection processes.
Earlier the aggrieved directors had made submissions and urged the committee to look critically into the issue based on existing laid-down civil service rules and regulations, alleging that the selection process was being influenced by personal and selfish interests.
