By Olusegun Olanrewaju
The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust (NSITF) yesterday denied reports that termites had eaten up some vouchers in its treasury, thereby hampering audit reports.
In a statement, the management said it was putting records straight to correct claims made in reports, including newspaper editorials, that termites had eaten up vouchers at the organisation.
Referring to what it called a ‘false narrative’ about the fund, especially in the background of the Senate Public Accounts Committee Hearing probing the 2018 Audit Report of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF) on N17.15bn, out of the nearly total of N58bn misappropriated from the Fund between 2012 and 2015, the fund said the financial infractions discovered in the accounts were, without a shred of doubt, of any link to the current one-year-old management.
Even though the management admitted that financial irregularities were discovered in the audit probe, “They were rather financial violations and sleazes committed by the former management and board who supervised the affairs of our organisation between 2012 and 2017.”
The NSITF stated, “Some members of the present management team were not even staff members of the organisation at this period in question.
However, knowing full well that government is a continuum, we presented ourselves before the Senate Committee, as well as rendered every assistance necessary for it to carry out its statutory oversight functions.
“Indeed, when the Senate Committee initiated this current probe in 2021, we had to set up an internal committee to retrieve from First Bank and Skye Bank, detailed transactions involving the NSITF under the period as requested by the Committee. The documents were subsequently submitted to the Senate Committee.
“And to further assist the Senate Committee in the performance of their function, at their prompting, we equally invited the former managing directors -Munir Abubakar (2010-2016), Ismail Agaka (2016-2017), and Bayo Somefun (2017-2020), under whose tenures these infractions as reported in the Auditor General’s Report took place, to respond to some of the questions raised in the reports of 2018 which the Senate is probing.”
According to the fund, “Nigerians who attended the Senate Public Hearing on Thursday, 11 August 2022, know and understand undoubtedly, that beyond mischief and the attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill, the circumstance under which reference was made to termites when one of the past managing directors had claimed that the vouchers for the N5bn payment made in 2013 would still be in a container in the compound of the fund.”
Going down memory lane, the management explained, “At this juncture, however, it is crucial that we recall the background of this entire ugly saga, especially for the members of the public who might have forgotten.
“In 2015, the EFCC, acting on petitions and tip-offs from whistle-blowers, investigated the accounts of the NSITF, and discovered massive looting to the tune of N62bn.
It subsequently arrested and charged the former chairman of the board of the Fund, Ngozi Olejeme, and two other board members, Aderemi Adegboyaga and R.U Uche to court.
Others equally charged included former managing director, Munir Abubakar, the deputy general manager of finance, Henry Ekhasomi; general manager, Legal, Adebayo Aderibigbe, and one other.
“We put on record also that it was the office of the Minister of Labour and Employment, our supervising ministry, that requested for the special periodic check of the Auditor-General of the Federation in 2017, having noticed that the Fund breached all the financial regulations and had no annual audit reports for five years between 2012 and 2017. It was also the minister who sought the EFCC report on the matter.
“The Senate Committee on Public Accounts, therefore, has made no discoveries or acting on fresh reports as skewed in a section of the press. It is only acting on the 2017 Auditor-General’s Report submitted to the 8th Senate in 2018.”
