The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and other Related Offences (ICPC) has disclosed the bogus fraud perpetuated by Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) in the 2021 and 2022 budgets in Nigeria
The anti-graft agency revealed during the interface with the Senate Committee on Finance on Thursday that the N13.59trillion 2021 budget was padded by the various MDAs with duplicated projects worth N300billion.
It said that projects duplication worth N100billion were also inserted by the MDAs into the N17.12trillion 2022 budget,adding that N49.9billion was tracked between January and June this year as salary for ghost workers.
These frauds carried by the MDAs were made known by the ICPC Chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, who said that the projects duplication was tracked through thorough scrutinization carried out on approved projects for the various MDAs.
He said: “N300billion would have been wasted by the federal government on duplicated projects inserted into the 2021 budget and N100billion for same purpose in the current fiscal year if not tracked and intercepted by ICPC.The same preemptive move, saved the country from spending N49.9billion for salaries of ghost workers put on fictitious pay roll by the fraudulent MDAs between January and June this year.
“Names of MDAs involved in projects duplications running into billions of naira and fictitious pay rolls, are available and will be forwarded to the committee.
The good thing about the preemptive moves made by us is that monies for the fraudulent acts were prevented from being released to the affected MDAs and it is gratifying that the Finance Ministry and Accountant General Office cooperated with us.”
To avert a repeat of what happen to the 2021 and 2022 budgets, the ICPC boss urged the relevant committees of the National Assembly to seriously interrogate the proposed N19.76trillion 2023 budget, adding, “from our own end, detection of such projects is done by verifying their locations and names, upon which we tell the appropriate authorities not to release wrongly budgeted monies for them.”
The Committee Chairman, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC Lagos West), told the anti-graft agency that the committee is impressed by proactive ways it adopts in the fight against corruption, adding that the operational cost of the agency will be increased from N1.8 billion.
“Your operational cost which is N1.8billion will be increased as required impetus for more proactive measures against corrupt practices across the various MDAs.Your submissions clearly show that all hope is not lost for our dear country as far as fighting corruption is concerned.”