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  The House of Representatives has during the weekend summoned over 16 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) over their alleged violation of Public Procurement Act.

 The lawmakers, who are looking into the losses the MDAs' action had caused the federal government, have summoned the Heads of the affected parastatals to appear before them.

Among the first set of MDAs to appear before the House are the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Industrial Train�ing Fund (ITF), Ministry of Defence comprising the Army, Navy and the Air Force, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Nigeria Immi�gration Service (NIS) and the Nigeria Prison Service (NPS).
Others are Nigeria oil and Gas Local Content Monitoring Board, National Health Insurance Scheme (NIHS), Pension Commission, Nigeria Custom Service (NCS), Nigeria Energy Regulatory Commission (NERC), Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), NAFDAC and others.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Procurement, Honourable Wole Oke, representing Oriade/Obokun Federal Constituency of Osun State, who confirmed this, during the committee's meeting in Abuja, at the weekend, said the action became necessary in order to arrest the situation and prevent future occurrences in the MDAs where several trillions of Naira had gone down the drain.

He revealed that the letters of invitation have been dispatched to all the affected MDAs.

 The lawmaker vowed that all identified culprits during the committee's investigations would be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commis�sion (EFCC) or the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offence Commission (ICPC) to be prosecuted to serve as de�terrent to others.

"Within the short time of our committee coming on board, we have discovered several wrong-doings being perpetrated by MDAs through which several tril�lions of naira had gone to private pockets.

"No respect for the Public Procurement Act, hiding of books from legislative scrutiny, lack of trained manpower, over invoicing, splitting of contracts and colluding with the Bureau of Public Procurement officials and lots of sharp practices have been the order of the days in MDAs which are punishable offences under the public Procurement Act and attract a minimum of five years imprisonment without an option of fine."�