….threaten NIMC DG
By Paul Effiong, Abuja
House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions on Wednesday summoned the Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, to appear before it on Tuesday next week to explain his refusal to honour an invitation from parliament.
Head of Media and Public Petitions Committee of the House, Chooks Oko, who disclosed this yesterday in a statement, also informed that the matter was brought to limelight by a foundation, Obasi-Pherson Help Foundation, through a petition to his panel alleging that some assistant comptrollers were due for retirement, but have blatantly refused to leave service.
The panel noted that Adeniyi 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 were elected to serve the people and ensure that all government agencies function effectively.”
In a related development, the committee also threatened to arrest the director-general of Nigerian Identity Management Commission, NIMC, unless she honours its invitation in person to answer charges on refusal to pay for state-of-the-art software development project installed in the commission by a private firm, Truid Limited.
Truid Limited is alleging a breach of licence agreement by NIMC.
According to the counsel to the firm, E. R Opara, the agreement was premised on an arrangement whereby Truid funded, developed and deployed tokenisation system without any financial obligation from NIMC.
Truid was to get returns on its 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.
Reacting to the submissions of counsels of the petitioners and the respondents, Chairman of the committee, Mike Etaba frowned at the continuous absence of the director-general despite several invitations.
