Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The Senate Public Accounts Committee has directed its Clerk to summon officials of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) to explain the missing N113m disbursed from Service Wide Votes (SWV) through the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF).

The Committee also said it had uncovered gross violation of procedures in the disbursement of Service Wide Votes to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.

The Senate panel is currently probing the disbursement of N4.9trn Service Wide Votes between 2017 and 2021.

The panel, chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide had established that the N113m was disbursed from the accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) to the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the recurrent expenditure in May 2017.

The fund was neither requested for nor received by the JAMB.

However, the record from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation did not show that the N113m was reversed to the Federation Account.

The Director of Cash Management from the Ministry of Finance who represented the Permanent Secretary, Aliyu Ahmed, told the lawmakers that JAMB did not apply for the N113 m.

He said the request was made on behalf of the examination body from the Ministry of Finance in 2017 and that the money was raised from Service Wide Votes.

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He said, “JAMB did not request for the N113m for recurrent, the Ministry of Finance made the request for them when we observed the gap, and the money was not released to JAMB, but returned to IPPIS and at the end of the year was mopped up automatically.

But the Committee chaired by Senator Matthew Urhoghide, observed that there is no record from the accountant-General of the Federation that the money was reversed back to the Federation Account.

The Committee also observed that many agencies received a disbursement of Service Wide Votes without any request which is an outright violation of procedures in releasing Service Wide Votes because there must be a request and approval must be given by the President before it can be released.

The representative of the Auditor-General of the Federation, Bamigbaye Oludotun, also said that Authority to Incur Expenditure (AIE) was raised from the Office of Accountant General of the Federation in favour of JAMB and the Examination body did not receive the money and it was never reversed.

He, however, submitted that the money is with IPPIS adding that most agencies used to complain that they did not receive the money and the money will not be reversed, which means the authority of approval was never obtained.

“I think the Committee has to call IPPIS to testify,” he said.

The Chairman of the panel said the money was never reversed with the narration on the AIE.

He added that JAMB did not request the money and the Ministry just made the projection on behalf of JAMB and this elicited the committee’s suspicion.

He said, “I agree that the Secretariat should invite officials of the IPPIS to shed more light on the issue.”