Posted by The Senate is telling the Federal Ministry of Works to give back a lot of money, around N692 million, because they think it was spent on fake contracts. This information is from the Auditor General’s report in 2018.
The Red Chamber made a decision because the Committee on Public Accounts found out that a contract to buy vehicles for a project was given without proper process, and the vehicles were not given even though N343 million was spent.
The report said that another agreement was made to buy parts for vehicles and computers, and to design roads and bridges. It cost N139 million.
The report said that someone took N210 million that was supposed to pay for a documentary and put N130 million and N80 million into a worker’s account. This is against the money rules.
The Senate group, led by Senator Mathew Urhoghide, invited the Ministry of Works to explain issues raised by the Auditor General. But the officials did not respond, which caused problems to continue.
The questions are being read.
An audit showed that 36 project monitoring vehicles were bought for N343 million without doing things properly.
Upon closer inspection, it was found that the store did not receive the 36 vehicles because there was no record showing their delivery.
An audit found that N139 million was spent on buying things like car parts, computer equipment, and photocopy machine parts for designing roads and bridges in Nigeria.
The store has no record of buying those things.
During an investigation, it was found out that N210 million that was supposed to be used for making a documentary was separated into two parts and then N130 million and N80 million were deposited into a staff’s account, which goes against the rules of FR 713.
After more investigation, it was discovered that N130 million was supposed to be spent on projects for different government departments like Finance, Agriculture, Transportation, Petroleum Resources, Mines and Steel, and Trade and Investment.
The papers that prove the payments were made were missing.
The Director of Finance and Account got approval to use N80 million, even though it was more than the amount he was allowed to approve.
We don’t know who made the documentary or how they were chosen. There is no proof of it.
There was no proof that the job was actually completed.
So, the Senate agreed with its committee and told the ministry, with its Permanent Secretary, to explain where the money went and give it back to the government’s main account.