By LEKE BAIYEWU, Abuja

The House of Representatives has given the Chief Executive Officers of telecommunications service providers a seven-day ultimatum to appear before its Committee on Finance.

Failure to appear, the lawmakers threatened to issue an arrest warrant on the CEOs.

Chairman of the committee, Mr James Faleke, had at the plenary on Thursday reported to the House via a motion unanimously adopted, that several invites to 15 telecoms operators, including MTN Nigeria, Glo Mobile Limited, Airtel Nigeria, to appear before them had been shunned.

Faleke said their non-appearance was frustrating the investigation by the committee of the alleged $30bn leakages in the sector due to alleged foreign exchange frauds.

The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, in his ruling, stated that the House would exercise its powers on the firms if they failed to comply with the last summons to be issued to them. (Text, excluding headline, courtesy of The Punch)