Reps Issue 30-Day Ultimatum To Yabatech Over Unaudited Accounts

Daniel Ojukwu

The House of Representatives has issued a 30-day ultimatum to the management of Yaba College of Technology, Lagos to prepare and present a report of its accounts to the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.

The House also demanded a proof of compliance sent to the House Committee on Public Accounts.

Implication of failing to do so, according to the Committee on Public Accounts, would be that the National Assembly would withhold the institution’s 2020 budgetary allocation.

Rector of the College, Mr. Obafemi Omokungbe, had on Friday appeared before the committee in Abuja during an investigative hearing.

He was quizzed on the non compliance of the institution to render audited accounts between 2014 and 2018.

Omokungbe said the auditor employed by Yabatech to audit the accounts had yet to complete work on it.

He also said he became Rector in 2018.

The committee faulted the responses of Omokungbe and decided to probe the institution’s financial records.

Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke said if the accounts were not audited and submitted to the Auditor-General within the stipulated time, budget allocation for 2020 would be withheld.

Oke said, “It is not going to be business as usual. Let me sound a note of warning to those heads of MDAs hiding under the pretext of being new in office or absence of governing boards to approve their audited accounts as a deliberate cover-up for not remitting their audited accounts to the Auditor General of the Federation as and when due.

“We, as a committee, will fish out those involved and publish their names and their MDAs in the national dailies. We are compiling their names; there will be no hiding place for them. This is not a threat; we are going to carry it out to the letter.”