New Telegraph

Senate directs NPA, 58 others to return N300bn misappropriated funds

The Senate has directed 59 agencies of the Federal Government to return over N300 billion misappropriated funds into the Federation Account. The Upper Chamber also ordered that all monies illegally spent by the affected agencies between 2013 – 2015 should be recovered and remitted into the National Treasury within 60 days.

The nation’s apex Assembly made these resolutions following the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts on the annual report of the Auditor General of the Federation on the accounts of the Federation for the year ended 31st December, 2015 (Part Ii &1).

The Committee has been investigating expenditures of Federal Hovernment agencies from 2015 – 2018 based on an audit report by the Auditor- General of the Federation in the last one year. The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide (PDP, Edo), in his presentation, disclosed that 114 MDAs were queried in the 2015 audit report, out of which 59 had their queries sustained at the end of the investigation. According to Urhoghide, in the course of the investigation, the Committee observed incessant violation of extant rules by the MDAs.

The Committee observed that the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) misappropriated N995m; Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs N1.77 billion; Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) N68.9 billion, $2.3 million and €196,000. Others are: Nigeria Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) N4.35 billion; Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) N8.84 billion; Ministry of Petroleum Resources N821.9 million; National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) N1.88 billion and Mortgage Bank N369 million. The report noted that the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs disposed 22 vehicles to various beneficiaries in May 2015 and realized N5,215,500. Out of the 22 vehicles, eight were purchased on 23 June, and 18 August, 2014 for N106,560,000 and duly paid for. Less than one year after acquisition, six of the vehicles costing N90,870,000 were sold at a ridiculous sum of N2,172,600.

Consequently, the Senate ordered that the sum of N61,436,400.00 being the understated disposable value of the vehicles be recovered and paid back to the treasury within 60 days. It also directed that the sum of N4.8 million should be recovered from the statutory allocation of the Ministry after it awarded a contract of N46.4 million and granted tax waiver to the company without recourse to the tax provision of the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

The Senate further asked the ministry to remit the sum of N1.7 billion to the FIRS being the balance of the unremitted outstanding Withholding Tax (WHT) and Value-Added Tax (VAT). Also, the report revealed that the NHIS, invested N122,893,876,023 in fixed deposit account without the approval of the Accountant- General of the Federation. The report noted that the interest yield amounting to N3,716,805, 388.00 realised by the agency was not remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Accordingly, the Senate in its recommendations, upheld the AuGF report that the agency should refund N3,716,805, 388.00 to the CRF within 60 days.

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