Reasons House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions summoned the Comptroller General of Nigerian Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, and others to appear before it on Tuesday next week have emerged.
This was revealed in the statement issued by the Media Head, Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives, Chooks Oko.
According to Oko, the Comptroller General, Adeniyi is to answer a petition before the Committee over the refusal of some top officials of the NCS to leave the service after their due retirement dates.
Oko noted that Obasi-Pherson Help Foundation had petitioned the 10th House over the retirement saga. The Foundation alleged that some Assistant Comptrollers and Comptrollers who were due for retirement but have blatantly refused to leave the service.
They named the affected officers as Imam, Umar and Egwu, all Assistant Comptrollers. And Awe, Fatia and Faith, Comptrollers as the culprits.
Issuing the summons, the House noted that the CG has a duty as a public officer to explain to Nigerians what the true position is.
“Nigerians deserve to know the truth of the matter. And it is only the CG that can clarify the situation. We are elected to serve the people. And ensuring that all government agencies function effectively is part of that service. In this era when most of our youths are looking for job, it will be wrong for the older ones who are due for retirement to refuse to go.”
“That is not to say we shall take sides, far from it. We treat each case on merit. Ensuring that justice is given at all times to the deserving ,” Mike Etaba, Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions said.
In a related development, Oko noted that the Committee has threatened to order the arrest of the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC). This is in case she fails to come in person to answer charges on refusal to pay the contractor, Truid Limited who installed the state-of-the-art software development project.
The statement added that Truid Limited is alleging a breach of license agreement by NIMC. It noted that E. R. Opara, counsel to Truid Limited, stated that the agreement is premised on an arrangement whereby the Truid Limited funded, developed and deployed tokenization system without any financial obligation from NIMC.
Truid, it stated was to get returns on her investment through patronage of service providers. And the proceeds shared on an agreed ratio. This was to run for an initial period of ten years from 2021 when the software was deployed.
However, the petition stated, things were going smoothly until the appointment of the new DG of NIMC who has been trying to truncate the agreement.
The Chairman of the Committee, Mike Etaba frowned at the continuous absence of the NIMC Director General despite several invitations.
The statement added, “If she fails to show up at the next hearing of this case, we’ll have no option than to ask the Inspector General of police to bring her.
“How can an official of government treat constituted authority with such levity? We can no longer condone such attitude.”. the Committee warned.
source: Channels TV
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