Reps Uncover A N2 Trillion Fraud In Nigerian Ministries

So what's new? As far as I'm concerned we all know the score. The reps themselves are fraudulent, the heads of ministries are fraudulent. Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black as they say.

With all the financial issues in the country which they will say is due to oil theft and other related activities,* I will say its due to stories like this - fraud* the House of Representatives uncovered a N2 trillion fraud in the executive and has begun processes to stop the activities of perpetrators of the act.

Imagine what this money would do for healthcare, in recent months the lack of proper healthcare in Nigeria has become apparent with the social media being used as an avenue to raise money for health operations out of the country.

The LEADERSHIP reported that the lawmakers discovered that some top heads of ministries, departments and agencies of government generate revenue from their agency’s activities running into trillions of naira but under-declare such revenue while diverting the remaining to other uses. This was exposed when the House Committee on Finance perused the books of 60 government ministries and agencies during its investigation into revenue generation and remittance of government ministries, department and agencies.

An extract from the LEADERSHIP

According to the chairman of the committee, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, who spoke with our correspondent over the weekend, the country lost over N1 trillion of revenue to the activities of such chief executive officers, money that could easily have been used to fund the capital component of the nation’s capital budget.

“We were able to ask some of the agencies to pay back N108 billion in total to the coffers of government but, in the past, where did this money go? This is quite worrisome,” he said.

He also pointed out that since the Fiscal Responsibility Agency as it currently stands has no power to sanction or punish, even where there is evidence of deliberate non-remittance of income, nothing can be done to the erring heads of agencies.

Jubrin pointed out that with over 500 institutions of government available, only 31 were listed in the schedule for revenue collection, leaving the remaining 469 unaccounted for.

“If we had harnessed this money as due, it would have gotten up to N2 trillion, more than 80 per cent of the capital budget. What is worrisome is that most of the agencies involved take subventions from the federal government yearly in the budget,” he said.