The report revealed that 2,605 personnel of the Nigeria Police Force, who had spent 35 years in service and due for retirement, still existed in the payroll data sets.
The Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation has uncovered cases of multiple entries of at least 1,174 names into the payroll system of the Nigerian government, referred to as the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
The OAUGF, in its 2019 audit report obtained by SaharaReporters, stated that 996 names of workers at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Kaduna State, were repeated in the nominal rolls, while 178 employees records at the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) were also repeated.
Other agencies with same repetition included the Nigeria Police Force.
The report revealed that 2,605 personnel of the Nigeria Police Force, who had spent 35 years in service and due for retirement, still existed in the payroll data sets.
The acting Auditor-General of the Federation, Adolphus Aghughu, had presented the audit report to the Clerk to the National Assembly, Ojo Amos, on September 15, 2021.
The audit report is titled, “Auditor-General for the Federation’s Annual Report on Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses Issues in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria for the Year Ended 31st December, 2019.”
The report partly reads, “AUDIT OF THE INTEGRATED PERSONNEL AND PAYROLL
INFORMATION SYSTEM (IPPIS) At the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System Department of the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, the following observations were made; MULTIPLE ENTRIES OF EMPLOYEE NAMES, DATE OF BIRTH
(DOB) AND/OR DATE OF FIRST APPOITMENT (DOFA); Audit observed records of some employees appearing twice or more in the nominal rolls of some MDAs sampled as follows:
“i. Nine hundred and ninety-six (996) names were repeated in the Nominal Rolls of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria; ii. One hundred and seventy-eight (178) employee records were repeated and 1,097 employees have “null' first names in the Nominal Rolls of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).
“Risks; i. Loss of funds to the FGN through input errors or even payroll fraud thus
defeating two (2) major objectives of the IPPIS of: The elimination of payroll fraud by the multiple payment of emolument to a single employee ii. Loss of data integrity due to inaccuracy and incompleteness of data on the applications that will adversely impact decision making especially the accuracy of annual budgeting for personnel cost.
“Audit observed from the review of the Nominal Roll of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) that: i. Seventy-four (74) Officers are less than eighteen (18) years of age; ii. Four hundred and five (405) officers were employed before their Dates of Birth; and iii. Seventeen thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight (17, 558) Officers have future dates of employments. These could be due to human errors during data entry caused by: i. The lack of knowledge of the PSR by the consultants and the non-involvement of the relevant stakeholders during the enrollment of MDA staff on the IPPIS platform; and ii. Absence of input controls on the application i.e. completeness and reasonableness checks.
“Audit observed: i. Thirteen (13) staff of the Federal Ministry of Defence and two thousand six hundred and five (2,605) officers of the NPF who have spent 35 years in service, still exist in the payroll data sets; ii. Seven thousand, and sixteen (7,016) staff in six (6) MDAs (i.e. Federal Ministry of Agric - 31; Federal Ministry of Education - 22; Federal Ministry of Works - 21; Federal Ministry of Defence - 30; NPF - 6,619 and Nigerian Correctional
Services - 293) that have attained 60 years of age still exist in the payroll data sets; and iii. Seventy-seven staff in ABU, Zaria that have attained 70 years of age are still being payrolled.
“These were due to the failure of reasonableness checks on the IPPIS applications, implying that the applications were not configured to apply this criteria where required. And also the absence of relevant internal and IT controls that would have ensured the IPPIS applications are properly configured before deployment to the live environment.”