The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee on Thursday said the failure by the Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue, Mr Zacch Adedeji, to appear before its members after several invitations, amounted to contempt of parliament.
The Chairman of PAC, Bamidele Salam, stated this at the resumed investigative hearing on the revenue leakages in Abuja.
Recall that the committee had earlier hinted of the possibility of using its statutory powers to issue a warrant of arrest against any head of Ministries Departments and Agencies who fails to honour its invite while carrying out its oversight function.
Speaking at the event on Thursday, Salam said, “This is the fourth time the committee would be inviting the FIRS chairman but he failed to show up..
“In addition to writing to him officially, we have also made sure that such letters were delivered personally to his mail box and his WhatsApp number.
“And we condemn and describe it as irresponsible and arrogant, and we tell him that there will be consequences if he continues this contempt of parliament.”
He noted that many letters were transmitted to Adedeji without responses, adding that the value-added tax that should be accrued to the Federal Government has not been collected by FIRS.
He said “By the time we finished our reconciliation, the money would be in hundreds of billions,” adding that this was what they were asking the FIRS to come and collect, but the service had refused to show up.
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