Auditor-General of the Federation, Mr. Samuel Ukura, yesterday, told the Senate that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, did not remit N3.235 trillion to the Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC, in 2014.
Similarly, he said the sale of gas to Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas, NLNG, to the tune of $235,685,861 was not paid to the federation account, noting that the money was transferred to what he called “some undisclosed escrow accounts.”
He also disclosed that “the sum of N36.4 billion was released to the Office of the National Security Adviser, NSA, for the rehabilitation and construction of dams instead of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.”
He further revealed that the management of the National Assembly, headed by the clerk, made payments of N9.514 billion without raising payment vouchers.
All these were contained in the Federal Government’s 2014 audit report of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, which he presented to the leadership of the National Assembly. The submitted audit report also captured embassies and foreign missions.
Ukura, who presented a copy of the report to the Clerk of the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa, for onward presentation to both chambers, gave highlights of how moneys were diverted or spent by MDAs during the period under review. In the same period, the audit report said personal advances were granted to 112 staff of the National Assembly from recurrent votes and 50 members of staff from general service votes from July to December, 2014 for various purposes, all amounting to N1.162 billion.
He said: “Relevant documents were not made available for verification.” The report also indicated that acquisition and payment of N3,630,000,000 property was made without a Certificate of Occupancy,C of O. It was alleged in the report that a total payment, amounting to N73.55 billion was made, contrary to established purpose of the funds. “The sum of N2,894,531, 250.00 was spent for the procurement of hand sanitizers for schools and critical public places.
“The sum of N31,324,952,239.87 was for payment of subsidy on fertilizer and youth employment in agricultural programmes. “The sum of N2,395,851,978.00 was payment for group Life Assurance Premium for Armed Forces budget in 2013, but not backed.
The sum of N500,000,000 was made as payment for agricultural programmes. “These were variances with the purpose of the fund. No evidence of these lines of expenditure in the 2014 Appropriation Act,” the AGF revealed. According to the AGF, the management of the National Assembly violated the nation’s financial regulations.
In the audit report, the AGF revealed how the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington, D.C., United States of America, realized Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, between 2012 and March 2015, but expended the whole amount on sundry expenses, adding that they stood at $3,705,428.00. The audit report indicted the leadership of the Nigerian Prisons Service as according to the AGF in the report, Pay As You Earn, PAYE, tax of N2,036,758,176.75 was deducted and said to be remitted to Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS. According to the report, there was no evidence of remittance and nothing was produced for audit confirmation.
The AGF also expressed concern that some user names and passwords were shared by several users and that most of them used words as ‘consultant’ or ‘technical’ with no restriction on the number of sign-in attempts.
“The audit trail for the IPPIS has not been enabled and as a result, it is not always possible to trace which user made particular inputs or changes. For example, fraudulent transactions cannot be traced to a particular user. “Application controls have not been activated in IPPIS to ensure that gross pay is input from salary and allowance tables, rather than the actual amounts being input directly.
“Completeness checks are not activated to ensure that all necessary data as bank account number, grade level, and job title have been entered.
“Duplicate checks to determine that the bank account numbers or employee numbers are not used by more than one payee. “Reasonableness checks not activated so that an officer’s age less than 18 years can still be paid while user profiles are not adequately restricted, hence an officer in one MDA can access the payroll data for other MDAs.
“The ability to create new users on the system is not adequately protected and restricted to a few ‘super users,”he stated. He said his office, as a result of the anomalies, discovered that about N330 million was paid to 300,000 people without following approved salary scale, while double payments of about N30 million was made within three months.
He added that the imperfections in the IPPIS system had made the country lose huge sums of money, with the payment of N12 million each to 40 members of staff who were not included in the payroll of the relevant MDAs.
He said 152 officers on IPPIS did not have personnel files in their MDAs, while N193m was paid to unidentified persons. Besides, he explained that N1.163m was paid to 596 employees with income tax deductions from April 2012 to September 2013 and that 2, 000 employees had no pension deductions. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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How did we get here? Can these be true? These things are becoming disgusting.
ReplyDeleteThis is a full compliance audit report. There is no benefit of doubt. What did we do to this people? Human being that breath in small number subjecting a large number of the citizen to abject poverty
DeleteThis is political witch hunting. Ukraine is a blatant liar. But come to think of it, can this ever be possible? I doubt.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 6:17 AM. It is people like you who always think upside down and talk through their anus first, then realise their stupidity and folly before retracing their wrong step. Without any objectivity your first sentence is that "This is political witch haunting and it is a lie" then you start having doubt regarding your earlier statement and now ask if this is possible? Gullible people like you (and unfortunately they are in tens of millions) are suffering from Poverty Mentality which replaces normal thinking with sentiments. You need to liberate your mind so that you will not continue to suffer from poverty of ideas.
DeleteThanks so much, my brother. You made my day.
DeleteUntil Nigeria starts giving corruption the Chinese treatment, no amount of innovations will curb it.
ReplyDeleteUntil capital punishment is given to corrupt public office holders, people will not be afraid of embezzling public funds.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm! 9ja! Civil servants, which way?
ReplyDeletePls Mr man be realistic...there are other ways to look for fame
ReplyDeleteI hope these lapses will be rectified and this report not just be left to gather dust on the table. By the way, what percentage of civil servants are computer literate??
ReplyDeleteThis is audit report and people are still calling it political witch hunting. The same people still made huge request from government and accountability.
ReplyDeleteHow can Nigeria move forward when we dont wake up to reality to stop the wicked ones?
IT IS EVERYONE RESPONSIBILITY. If not, the richer will get richer and the poorer will continue to get poorer.
Talk of using IT to stop corruption GEJ style!!!
ReplyDeleteNigerians are a people of great resilience
ReplyDeleteNigeria is finished!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo, what next? Who are the people looking at this report? Ex Governors in most cases who are all saints. The auditor is reporting wicked civil servants to wicked ex governors. So I ask, what next?
ReplyDeleteOnly GOD can save this country
ReplyDelete