About N3.5 billion was misappropriated in 2016 by the management of the National Assembly, an audit report has revealed. The monies were siphoned through various schemes such as failure to retire advances, financial documentation irregularities, excess payment for goods, controversial purchases and diversion of funds. These findings were contained in the 2016 annual audit report released by the Auditor General of the Federation. The report, released this year, noted how the agency failed to provide receipts, vouchers or contract documents for many transactions made in 2016. As Senate President, Mr Saraki heads the overall institution of the National Assembly. Some other key officials in the National Assembly with direct or oversight management responsibilities include the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; Clerk of the National Assembly, Mohammed Omolori; Chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission, Adamu Fika; and Director General of the National Institute of Legislative Studies, Ladi Hamalai. Some of them were directly indicted n the report. INDICTMENT During the audit of the accounting records maintained at the National Assembly and its agencies, at the management section, under the General Services, it was revealed that capital account payment vouchers for amounts totalling N417 million (N417,312,538.79), raised for settlement of some contractors, were without vital supporting documents, ”a financial decision that depicts violation of Financial Regulation which provides that all vouchers shall contain full particulars of each service as to enable them to be checked without reference to any other document and will invariably be supported by relevant documents.” “The Clerk to the National Assembly, Mohammed Sani Omolori, should produce the supporting documents to the payment vouchers or recover the amount in question from the contractors,” the auditor ruled. Also, during the audit of staff salary accounts, 37 payment vouchers with amounts to N67 million (N66,713,355) were observed to have been paid between January and June, 2016 for items not related to personnel cost. The payees in the cashbook also did not correspond with those in the bank statement. This irregularity is a violation of Financial Regulation which states that “Expenditure shall strictly be classified in accordance with the estimates and votes must be applied only to the purpose for which the money is provided. Expenditure incorrectly charged to a vote shall be disallowed.” “The sum of N66,713,355.08 being irregular expenditure should be recovered from the officer who approved the payments from the personnel vote,” the auditor instructed. Review Of Expenditure During the review of documents of capital expenditure vote by the auditor, it was discovered that payments totalling N116 million (N116,162,522.60) were made between April and June, 2016 to some contractors for various jobs carried out, without raising payment vouchers. This contravenes the provisions of Financial Regulation which state that under no circumstance shall money be paid for services, for which a voucher has not been raised. ”The Clerk to the National Assembly should produce the payment vouchers for examination,” the report added. Also, a total sum of N57 million deducted from various contract payments in respect of Withholding Tax and Value Added Tax was without evidence of remittance to the tax authorities. The clerk was asked to produce the acknowledgement receipts from the Federal Inland Revenue Service for verification. He was stated, in the report ”to have ignored the auditor on these issues.” ‘Watery Documentation’ The general services account of the National Assembly was depleted by about N751 million on account of “watery financial documentations” and failure of staff to retire advances according to the report. In the documents, it was revealed that N625 million was granted to the Constitution Review Committee through four payment vouchers between March and June 2016. These were not supported with relevant documents and details of the expenses.
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