By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has failed to justify the spending of N17.158bn.
The agency said some of the evidential documents needed to justify the spending were alleged to have been eaten up by termites.
The N17.158bn, as stated in the 2018 Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF) report, was the total amount of money transferred by the NSITF from its Skye and First Bank accounts into various untraceable accounts belonging to individuals and companies from January to December 2013.
The Auditor-General’s office had in the 2018 Audit report raised 50 different queries bordering on alleged misappropriation of funds by the management of the agency.
One of the queries read, “The Management of the NSITF as shown in statements of Account No. 1750011691 with Skye bank PLC, for the period 1st January 2013 to 20th December 2013, and Statements of Account No.2001754610 with First Bank Plc for the period 7th January 2013 to 28th February 2013, transferred amounts totalling N 17,158,883,034.69bn to some persons and companies from these accounts.
“However, payment vouchers relating to the transfers together with their supporting documents were not provided for audit. Consequently, the purpose(s) for the transfers could not be authenticated.
“These violate financial rule 601 which states that “All payment entries in the cashbook/accounts shall be vouched for on one of the prescribed treasury forms. Vouchers shall be made out in favour of the person or persons to whom the money is due.
“Under no circumstances shall a cheque be raised, or cash paid for services for which a voucher has not been raised”.
The SPAC, chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide (PDP Edo South), interrogated NSITF’s past and present managements on the issue, on Friday.
The panel had asked the management team where monies totalling N17.158bn were transferred between January and December 2013.
The management could not offer any satisfactory explanations for the undocumented multiple transfers.
The officers in charge of the agency in 2013 told the committee that documents like vouchers were left behind by them while the present Managing Director of NSITF,
Michael Akabogu said no documents of such were in their kitty.
Buhari recalls Bashir Ahmad, upgrades him to Special Assistant
He said, “The container the said documents were kept by past management has not only been beaten by rains over the years but even possibly being eaten up by termites.
“As directed by this committee, I told the past management officers about the need for them to help us out in answering this query with necessary documents which have not been made available for us.”
However, in his submissions, the Managing Director of NSITF from 2010 to 2016, Mallam Umar Munir Abubakar, said he was unaware of the query and have no explanations for it since the audit was not carried out during his tenure.
Abubakar’s successor, Adebayo Somefun, who was head of the agency from May 2017 to July 2020, said those in the account section should be able to trace the documents which the current General Manager, Finance, alleged to have been locked up in an abandoned container within the premises of the Trust Fund in Abuja.
Irked by submissions of the past and present NSITF officials, the Senate committee ordered them to re-appear before the committee with all the requested evidential documents unfailingly on Thursday, September 22, 2022.
The SPAC Chairman said, “This committee has given you people more than enough time to respond to queries slammed on NSITF in the 2018 Audit report by the office of Auditor-General of the Federation.
“The queries are 50 in number ranging from one misappropriation to the other in billions of naira. The one on N17.158bn multiple transfers carried out in 2013 has not been answered at all, not to talk of N5.5bn allegedly diverted into a commercial bank account without approval, N2.2bn unauthorized Investment without adequate records, etc.
“These are completely unacceptable and the committee will make sure that these queries are sustained if required evidential documents on monies spent or misappropriated are not provided,” he said.
