The North-East Development Commission (NEDC), the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) and other agencies of the Federal Government under the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari regime, have been indicted for N3.8trillion fraud, according to a report by the Nigerian Senate.
Also indicted are the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and over 30 other Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) for mismanaging N3.8 trillion received from Service Wide Votes (SWV) in four years.
The indictment is contained in a Senate Public Accounts Committee report which probed the disbursement of N5trillion from the SWV to more than 200 government agencies between 2017 and 2021, during the former president, Muhammadu Buhari's regime.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, had invited 207 government agencies for the investigation, but only 119 agencies appeared, according to the report.
The committee presented its report to the Senate during Wednesday’s plenary and its recommendations were adopted.
Urhoghide, while presenting the report, said his committee after investigation discovered that many agencies collected fund from SWV without recourse to the National Assembly committees that is mandated by law to oversee the agencies.
He disclosed that some of the MDAs got unsolicited funds from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
According to him, some MDAs misappropriated the resources approved by the former president.
Senator Urhoghide, furthered that some MDAs collected the fund for projects already executed in the Appropriation Acts over the years.
He said, “Hundreds of Billions of Naira were claimed to have been used for the purposes of paying salary shortfalls whereas such agencies had already collected appropriation for personnel emolument and were on the IPPIS platform.
“In some instances, huge sums of money were thrown at agencies which they didn’t apply for/or are not in the know of where the money came from and for what purpose.
“The IPPIS intervention towards meeting insufficiencies or shortfalls in Personnel Costs has been bastardised and running into huge sums of money needing legislative scrutiny.
“Most of the MDAs involved in the period under review deliberately avoided the Committee’s invitation for appearance and refused to make submissions, perhaps for lack of satisfactory explanations on the utilisation of the funds released to them.”
The Senate, after adopting the committee’s recommendations, urged the Executive to use supplementary budget approach to meet emergencies instead of Service Wide Vote, which it said amounts to affront/erosion of the approval powers of the National Assembly.
The committee also recommended that the Auditor-General for the Federation should be given full access by the Accountant General and other MDAs to audit Service Wide Vote expenditures annually and report to the National Assembly.
It also called for in-depth investigation into the operations of IPPIS to stern the rising cases of irregularities in the system.
The MDAs indicted include: the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Transportation, Health, Works and Housing, Information and Culture, Mines and Steal Development, Police Affairs, Defence, Youths and Sports, Petroleum and Aviation.
Others are; the State House, the Budget Office, the Presidential Fleet, the Nigerian Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the NAFDAC, Civil Defence, Presidential Amnesty Programme, FERMA, NEMA, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), the Debt Management Office, INEC, North East Development Commission (NEDC), the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), the National Examination Council (NECO), among others