The Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says it has uncovered gross abuse of personnel budget and inflation as well as padding of the nominal role by some Federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) amounting to N18.62 billion.
The Chairman of the ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, made the disclosure at the National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector and presentation of integrity awards, organized by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in collaboration with ICPC, in Abuja on yesterday.
According to him, the discovery of the scam followed the launching of the commission System Study and Review of MDA Practices, involving over 300 MDAs.
He said: “As at the time we went to press we had covered about 300 MDAs and the amount inflated was about N12.9 billion.
“As at today your Excellency we have discovered additional N6b making a total of N18.624 billion restrained by ICPC.
“The exercise is still ongoing but we can confidently report that culprit MDAs are mostly academic and health institutions. For example, preliminary findings show the following –
“University of Benin Teaching Hospital N1.1 billion; Federal Medical Center, Bayelsa N915 million; Nnamdi Azikwe University N907 million; University of Jos N896 million; University College Hospital Ibadan N701 million; Usman Dan Fodio University N636 million and University of Ibadan N558 million.
“These institutions and all those implicated will be given the opportunity to explain themselves, however while investigations are on to confirm any credible explanations they may have, we have alerted the Minister of Finance of our findings and appropriate steps are being taken to ensure that implicated MDAs will not be able to spend the excess built into their personnel budget.
“Let me note with regret sir that in the 2017-2018 fiscal year the balances recorded for personnel were wrongfully utilized by MDAs for other purposes due to lack of proactivity by late enforcement and related agencies. That sum amounted to N18.39b.’’
In light of these findings, the ICPC Chairman stressed the need for full implementation of the presidential directive that MDAs not on IPPIS should not be paid as the commission’s review had shown that most of the guilty MDAS was not on IPPIS.
He added: “In a similar vein, we found that some MDAs spent N9.2 billion of capital funds on overhead related items contrary to extant financial regulations.
“We found to our surprise that some MDAs fail to remit tax and divert pension and NHIS deductions for unrelated payments thus aggravating the sufferings of other Nigerians.
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