Abuja - August 25 - (Viewpoint Housing News) – The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Oluwatoyin Sakirat Madein has been summoned to appear before the House of Representative ad-hoc committee to give account of money deducted from workers’ salaries that were not remitted.
The AGF is also to explain the reasons for disparities and why only N20 billion has been remitted to the Federal Mortgage Bank since 2011.
Representative of the Director, Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS), Ekwem Dem, told the committee that while deduction from salaries of workers was automatic, remittance was not automated.
He, however, could not tell the committee how much had been deducted as housing fund from workers since 2011, saying, even though they had the information, he needed to “query the system” before responding to the question.
Members of the committee had observed from documents presented by IPPIS that N23,000 was deducted from the University of Calabar for National Housing Fund (NHF) for one month, while Federal Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi, contributed N9,000.
They asked the AGF to furnish the committee with information on what had been deducted from workers, so far, when such money was deducted, and why the money was not remitted.
A member of the committee, Timehin Adelegbe, said: “If the deduction is automated, the remittance should also be automated.”
Managing Director of Federal Mortgage Bank, Madu Hamman, appealed to the committee to amend the act establishing the bank and NHF, to give more effect to operations of the fund.
Hamman said the bank collected about N591.523 billion as remittances from the formal and informal sector of the Nigerian economy between 2011 till date, out of which N238.557 billion was collected from government ministries, departments and agencies.
He said the bank also has an outstanding payment of about N26.573 billion with the office of the AGF.
