The Senate committee
on Public Account has
discovered wanton disregard for accounting procedures, deliberate avoidance of due process and other forms of corrupt practices in many federal government ministries and parastatals, lamenting that over 113 agencies and corporations have not submitted their audited accounts for scrutiny in the last 20 years.
The report presented by the chairman of the committee, Senator Mamman Ali, also urged the Senate to direct the accounting officer of the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory (MFCT), to recover money paid to the two special assistants to the minister of the FCT who were allegedly paid colossal sums of money as salaries even though their employment was irregular and in wanton disregard of due process.
The report presented to the Senate yesterday, listed 28 cases of losses of stores and 14 cases of losses of cash all of which arose from theft, fraud, negligence and non-observance of existing financial regulations.
“It is sad to observe that many agencies are yet to wake up to the demands of financial regulations and extant circular, irregular documentation and poor record keeping,” the report said.
Senator Mamman Ali further said the federal ministry of education has, out of 75 queries on its financial records, resolved only 11, adding that the ministry cannot resolve issues bord-ering on wasteful expenditure, non-adherence to budget and outright fraud.
“It is yet to be explained how a contract for the supply of materials for items already in use in schools cost the ministry the sum of N328 million (for the supply of coat of arms for schools). Another hanging issue was the manner of contract awards for unity schools in excess of the authorised budgetary provisions.”
The committee also requested the Senate to direct the federal ministry of works to ask the contractor handling the Kaura-Namoda-Shinkafi-Sabon Birni road project to refund the sum of N264 million while insisting that any variation without the approval of the National Assembly is illegal.
The committee also reported that the federal ministry of water resources could not explain how the sum of N4 billion out of the N4.9 billion allocation for Improved National Assess to Water Sup-plies and Sanitation Programme was spent on miscellaneous items noting that to date, the ministry has failed to explain this misapplication of funds.
The committee observed that bureaucratic shields were incessantly used to cover financial offences and lamented that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has not been conforming with financial regulations.
The report further expressed displeasure over the refusal of the NNPC, INEC and the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), to disclose their accounts and lamented that many federal government agencies failed to respond to invitations to submit their accounts or respond to queries.
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