Reps Suspends NAFDAC 2019 Budget Defence,Threatens DG With Criminal Prosecution

Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Services on Monday suspended the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC),2019 budget defence over unapproved expenditure and other allegations standing against its Director-General ,  Professor Mojisola Adeyeye.

The lawmakers, after interrogation of  the DG for expenditure without legislative approval in 2018,however said the last year budget was not committed to the legislature as required by the 1999 Constitution.

The chairman of the Committee, Chike Okafor (APC, Imo) and a member, Nicholas Ossai (PDP, Delta), disclosed this in Abuja during the 2019 budget defence by the NAFDAC boss.

The Committee, adjourned the budget defence to a yet to be disclosed date,even as it threatened to recommend the DG for criminal prosecution.

Recall that Professor Adeyeye had earlier accused members of the Healthcare Services Committee of demanding for “welfare money” from her, a euphemism for bribe, when they visited her in 2017.

The Chairman said:“We cannot go ahead with the 2019 appropriations for your agency until you have satisfactorily explained to this Committee why you spent money without the approval of legislature in 2018.

This is a clear violation of Section 81 of the 1999 Constitution, which requires appropriation before spending,” Ossai told the NAFDAC DG who was accompanied to the budget hearing by her husband, Senator Sola Adeyeye.

In defence, the NAFDAC DG contended that she was never invited for budget defence by the Committee, adding that her decision to spend money without approval in 2018 was borne out of her resolve to help Nigerians.

But the lawmakers, who were visibly unimpressed with Adeyeye’s explanation, cited various invitation letters sent to her, which she declined, as well as series of breaches she had allegedly committed.