Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, has reacted to a fire that gutted the national office in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to him, no casualty was recorded while no official document was lost.
“For emphasis, our data Centre is intact, no harm in any way except for the cooling system which we are now working hard to put back to operation. We are also glad there is no casualty,” he said.
Some Nigerians have been suspecting sabotage, citing the controversy surrounding the distribution of government’s empowerment fund said to be up to N2tn.
On Tuesday, the leadership of the National Assembly had challenged the Finance Minister on the spending, saying there was the need to verify the distribution.
They also noted that those who were supposed to be the targeted poor might not have been substantially reached.
The AGF, however, never ruled out the possibility of sabotage as he maintained that a thorough investigation will be carried out.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, has confirmed that no official records were lost in the fire.
Agba told newsmen that the fire at the treasury house was caused by a spark from one of the Air Conditioners on the 4th floor of the building at about 10am Wednesday.
According to him, the fire was successfully put out by 25 fire trucks within 35 minutes.
The minister added:
“We have gone round the rooms and offices where the fire affected, and I am glad to report that our data Centre where all our records are kept are fully intact. There is no destruction, so we haven’t lost any record.
“As a government I want to assure you that our records are intact, a few documents are burnt, we haven’t started recovery to check what actually burnt, but all our financial transactions are intact.
“We would be doing full scale investigation using the right professionals to determine exactly what happened.”
