How Niger Ministries,MDAs Embezzle Funds-Report

4 years ago
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Niger Assembly Report Indicts MDAs – Independent Newspapers Nigeria
Niger State House of Assembly (NSHA) reports has indicted Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to have been engaged in a widespread sharp practices ranging from financial missapropriation and extra-budgetary expenses.
Other areas of noticeable sharp practices as contained in the report included; issuing payment vouchers without supporting documents, having outstanding payment vouchers, under-collection of revenues from MDAs and as well, discrepancies of salaries.
Extra budgetary expenses report of the Niger State Auditor General (AG) on the accounts of the government of Niger state for the year that ended 31st December, 2019 also exposed  MDAs’ purchase and repairs without receipts and unauthorized expenditures.
The report also indicated that; many payments were made without expenditure details, payment vouchers not posted into cash books, revenue receipts not posted into cash books and weak Internal control mechanisms.
The Auditor General report also noted with dismay that the majority of the MDAs in Niger state are still analogue hence do not have e-mail addresses and thus rarely respond to the queries of the Auditor-General on most of the noticeable administrative flaws.
Commenting on the discoveries,thr House Committee Chairman on Public Accounts, Hon. Yahaya Abdullahi (Agaie), said the report covers real issues involving major MDAs and that the issues discovered are such that can affect the image of the state government before the public because of the quantum of funds involved.
Hon Yahaya said, “Officers controlling state government spendings do not take seriously the use of vote book, a memorandum accounts book used for monitoring government expenditure and this give rise to extra-budgetary expenses or misclassification of expenditure”.
He said activities of the MDAs could affect transparency and accountability in governance as observations contained under the Appropriation Audit .
He warned  that  MDAs discovered to be engaged in extra-budgetary expenses, financial malpractices and related sharp practices will henceforth be denied their overhead allowances for a certain period.
He added: “Henceforth, any authorized excess on a sub-head must receive covering approval or refunded by the officer responsible for incurring it as provided in chapter 6, No. 06033 of the Niger State Financial Regulations Revised Edition 2017”.
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