AuGF: Senate demands refund of N19bn illegally paid to four MDAs
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The red chamber had in October last year commenced an investigation into the alleged illegal payment of N19bn to four unnamed federal agencies by the Budget Office.
However, after the investigation by the Senate Public Accounts Committee, the Budget Office was unable to present evidence of approval from the Ministry of Finance before paying the N19bn from the Service Wide Vote to the four unnamed federal agencies.
The Budget Office of the Federation in its response to the query claimed that it had written the office of the Auditor General for the Federation requesting details of the four MDAs without response.
The Committee Chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide, noted that the Budget Office did not present the letter it claimed to have written to the office of the AuGF, requesting the details.
Due to the inability of the Budget Office to present approval for the payment of the N19bn to the four MDAs, the Senate adopted the report of the Senate Public Accounts Committee on the matter asking for a refund of the said amount to the Federation Account.
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Part of the AuGF read, “Four MDAs were paid the sum of N19bn from the Service Wide Vote without the approval of the Honourable Minister of Finance, some of the payments were made on a purported verbal directive from the Director General.
“This act is against the financial Regulations 301 and 302 which state that ‘recurrent expenditure is paid from the CRF and no expenditure may be incurred except on the authority of a warrant issued by the Minister of Finance.
“Given the above, it is difficult to accept the payment to the MDAs as proper and legitimate charges against the public funds.
“The Director-General should provide evidence of approval from the Minister of Finance for these expenditures or recover the sum of N19bn from the benefiting MDAs.”
