Reps panel knocks TETFund boss, others for snubbing probe

The House of Representatives Committee on Federal Character slammed the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Executive Secretary, Arc Sonny T. Echono, for failing to appear at an investigative hearing to defend the agency’s activities.

Chairman of the committee, Hon Idris Wase, also knocked the Industrial Training Fund, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, the National Sugar Development Council for failing to honour the Committee’s invitation.

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The lawmaker was upset Echono failed to turn up even after several invitations.

He said they were taking the committee for granted over their persistent refusal to honour invitations and that henceforth it would not be tolerated.

The representative of the Executive Secretary of TETFund at the meeting, Babatunde Oladeji, who is the Director of monitoring and evaluation in the fund, told the committee that the Executive Secretary was away on official leave.

Wase stressed that all agencies of government must be accountable and transparent to the Nigerian people.

He said henceforth they would be sanctioned under the law if they continued to avoid the parliament.

He said, “You must be accountable to the House. This is the last time. Next time the committee would invoke its powers provided for in the constitution

“You are appearing before the House of Representatives Committee and we are not going to take this nonsense any longer.

“This is a House that you should be giving account to. And I don’t know the instrument that gave you the power to operate. The same parliament that gave you the powers, what makes you think that they are useless here. We are here on behalf of all Nigerians. We keep writing and you keep neglecting us. Where do you draw your powers from? You are spiting the entire country.

“We cannot let any agency or ministry take us for granted because without us, they don’t exist. It is unacceptable for them to keep disrespecting this committee.”

He said because of the way heads of agencies were treating the parliament with levity, the committee had to advertise in three national dailies apart from the letters.

He said they could not attend to their representatives as they were not accountable for the various agencies.

“I am disappointed with the Executive Secretary of Tetfund. He was a former federal perm sec. I expect him to be more compliant than any other person as he should know the rudiments of civil service better. He chose to neglect it. We would not take it,” Wase said.

“The Committee has not been doing it’s job properly in the past that is why people think they can do anything and carry on with it. It would not be business as usual.

“This is your last warning. Tell him that the Committee is not willing to go the way he thinks. Or take the Committee for granted. But if he thinks he has the power to do that, then we shall meet at the appropriate point. We will make every chief executive accountable. They should not test the will of the Committee.”

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