How Federal Government Ministries And Agencies Padded 2021,2022 Budget with N300 Billion, Says ICPC
- The boss of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission said the agency uncovered massive fraud in the 2021 and 2022 budgets
- Bolaji Owasanoye stated that about N49.8 billion were budgeted for salaries for ghost workers by various Ministries and agencies of government in the 2021 budget
- He added that about N300 billion was inserted in the budget and discovered to be for duplicated projects, while the 2022 budget contained N100 billion allocated for repeated projects
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission disclosed on Thursday, September 15, 2022, that the N13.59 trillion 2021 budget was heavily padded by various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with duplicitous projects worth N300 billion.
The Punch reports that the anti-graft agency Chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, disclosed this during a meeting with Senate Committee on Finance.
Source: Getty Images
Padded project detected in two budget cycles
Owasanoye also stated that about N100 billion worth of projects were inserted into the N17.12 trillion budget for 2022 by some MDAs, and N49.9 billion was tracked as salaries for non-existent workers between January and June last year.
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He explained that they tracked the N300 billion duplicated projects in the last year’s budget and the N100 billion in this year’s budget via an examination done on approved projects for the different MDAs.
According to the ICPC boss, N300 billion would have been wasted by the Nigerian government on duplicitous projects put into the 2021 budget and N100 billion for the same reason this year’s, were they not tracked by the ICPC.
Ghost workers to receive N49.9 billion as salaries
The same move, he said, saved Nigeria from spending N49.9 billion on salaries of ghost workers put on mythical payrolls by the fraudulent MDAs in the last six months of this year.
Owasanoye said that the culpable MDAs would be handed over to the committee.
Owasanoye noted that the names of MDAs involved in project duplications were available and would be forwarded to the committee.
He asked appropriate committees of the National Assembly to be vigilant and watch out for such projects in the proposed 2023 budget.
The projects were discovered by verifying their locations and names and informing the relevant authorities not to disburse wrongly budgeted funds to them.
ICPC finds N540 million in account of primary school teacher with N76K salary, court makes strong decision
Legit.ng reported that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Thursday, July 28, announced that it found a total of N540 million in the account of a public primary school teacher with a salary of N76,000.
Premium Times reports that the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has also ordered the final forfeiture of N120 million traced to the teacher, Roseline Egbuha who teaches at Ozala Primary School, Abagana, Anambra State.
A statement by the commission's spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua said that the court headed by Justice D.U Okorowo also ordered the forfeiture of cars traced to Egbuha and some of her accomplices in money laundering activities.
Source: Legit.ng
