The House of Representatives Committee on Federal Character on Tuesday berated the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc Sonny Echono, for failing to appear at an investigative hearing to defend the activities of the agency.

Chairman of the committee, Rt Hon Ahmed Idris Wase, CON was upset that Echono failed to turn up even after several invitations.

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

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 in accordance to the law if they continue 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 that 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 can not 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 that 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.

The Committee has not been doing it's job properly in the past, which 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,” he told the representative of the Tetfund Boss.