House of Representatives demand refund of N4bn from private airlines to the Federal Government

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Representatives has given a week ultimatum to all private airline operators in the country to render justifiable evidence before it on how they expended the N4bn they collected from the Federal Government as COVID-19 intervention funds or refund the money to the government treasury. The Committee is chaired by Rep. Bamidele Salam (Osun-PDP) handed down the directive on Friday at the resumed investigative hearing on the alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 intervention funds by the Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government and others who benefited from the funds. The Committee resolved that “all private airlines that received COVID-19 relief funds designated to support the aviation sector to refund the allocated funds to the federal government treasury if they fail to give justifiable evidence of how the money was judiciously spent within a week.” The Committee lamented that despite appearing before it, several of the airlines and industry stakeholders, including Aero Contractors, Azman, Newrest, and representatives from the Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development, failed to provide satisfactory explanations regarding the allocation and expenditure of the funds.