Five federal government agencies have paid N790 million into some accounts without payment descriptions, findings by Dataphyte covering a financial span of three months has revealed.
Due to this development and against financial laws, it has become impossible to determine the purpose of the expenditures.
Most of the payments were made to contractors under the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, Nigerian Armed Forces, National Mathematical Centre, Federal Ministry of Police Affairs, National Institute for Construction Technology, National Institute for Nigerian Language among others.
Payment data analysis of the Open Treasury Portal revealed that N790 million was paid between June and August 2021 without indication of what the payments were meant for.
These non-descriptive payments comprise 46 payments made to various ministries, parastatals, banks and others.
A breakdown of the figures showed that N411 million was paid in June, N276 million in July and N103 million, all without descriptions.
For instance, in June, a payment coded 1000801462-1 and valued at N130 Million was paid to the Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre Sub Account without description.
The same June, N86 million was paid into Wema Bank’s account for the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun. In the same month, N14 million was paid to “VILNEE ENGINEERING LIMITED” for the National Institute for Nigerian Languages. All payments were made without descriptions.
In July, N23 Million was paid each into LANRE –NIRAN &SONs LTD and STIRKS INTERNATIONAL LTD. Both payments were for the FEDERAL COOPERATIVE COLLEGE IBADAN without descriptions. N35 million was also paid to VEKO SCIEN NIG LTD for FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC MUBI.
Also, in August, N27 Million was paid into the account of GIOHEN GLOBAL CONCEPT for the Federal University Of Agriculture, Makurdi without description.
Negligence as a tool of destruction.
According to the 2020 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Nigeria was ranked 149 out of 179 countries.
Despite the Presidential clamour on the purpose and the need to publish daily treasury statements in order to ensure accountability and transparency in governmental policies and activities, several MDAs have violated the directive.
The directive reads, “The Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) must publish a daily treasury statement which will provide information about what came into the national purse and what went out every single day. I repeat every single day. Henceforth, treasury is required to publish this information unfailingly. The AGF and all accounting officers must publish daily payments reports.”
“With these reports, the treasury will publish payments of at least N10 million while all MDAs must publish payments above N5 million made out of all public funds under their purview. The information to be published must include the MDA responsible, the beneficiary, the purpose and the amount of each payment. Accounting officers are responsible for providing answers to any questions from the public relating to transactions completed by entities under their charge.”
The Spokesperson to the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Henshaw Ogubike, said he could not answer questions around the non-descriptive payments.
Meanwhile, Abel Akeni, Head of Research and Policy Advisory Department at BudgIT Nigeria, explained that a session of the 2007 procurement act exempts all expenditures related to national security or national defence. He noted that the president’s express approval would be needed to not describe any payment made outside the exemption.
Akeni noted that payments without descriptions in the Open Treasury Portal could bring about misappropriation of funds, lack of transparency and accountability if there are no records of what public funds are used for.
“The implication of having payments without descriptions on the Open Treasury Portal is that there is risk for misappropriation where expenditures can be carried out on items for which no appropriation was made in the year’s Appropriation Act. There is also the risk for outright fraud if there is opacity on precisely what public funds are used for.
“Also, the implication could also be that there are capacity gaps in following due process by civil servants or in the use of appropriate reporting tools or point to the existence technical glitches in the reporting tools themselves that would ordinarily have allowed the descriptions of each payment to be clearly stated on the Open Treasury website”, he added.