Monies, the report revealed, were moved from the Stabilisation Account for States and the Federal Government by the Presidency for the establishment of an Army Barracks and another sum as investment in the Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Uche Usim, Abuja
A comprehensive 2016 audit report from the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAuGF), headed by Anthony Ayine, has revealed how untidy accounting procedures and general operational tardiness led to an overpayment of a whopping N837.082 billion to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), as cost of revenue collection for August of same year.
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The development seen as a dent on President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption machinery, Daily Sun learnt has already set tongues wagging both within government circles and from the opposition ahead of the 2019 general elections due in February.
The 2016 report of Federal Government’s financial statement recently completed and submitted to the National Assembly by the Auditor General for the Federation, Mr. Anthony Ayine, read in parts: “Our examination of the Accountant-General’s transcript and FAAC figures revealed that the FIRS and DPR were overpaid cost of collection in the month of August 2016 in the amounts of N305,922,200.48 and N531,160,436.78 respectively totaling N837,082,637.24. It was observed that what was captured in the Accountant-General’s transcript as payments for the month of August for FIRS and DPR as cost of collection differs from what FAAC approved in the FAAC file. It is expected that only figures approved by FAAC are to be paid by the Accountant-General of the Federation. The difference resulted in overpayments of N837,082,637.24 by the Accountant-General to the two collecting agencies”, it stated.
The audit report also exposed a flagrant abuse of financial regulation in the execution of the 2016 budget via an illegal movement of monies from two dedicated funds to purposes other than for the mandates of the funds.
Monies, the report revealed, were moved from the Stabilisation Account for States and the Federal Government by the Presidency for the establishment of an Army Barracks and another sum as investment in the Sovereign Wealth Fund.
The two actions, the report maintained, were not in sync with the laws as the framework of recovery of the funds are illegal, just as another case of lending out the ecological funds meant to strictly check ecological challenges without records to track recovery.
“From available records, a total of N17,108,583,681.78 accrued from the Federation Account into 0.5per cent Stabilisation Fund from January – December 2016. During the examination of Central Bank, Bank Statements for the year, we observed that the sum of N2,812,694,928.36 was funds released to the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), and N14,374,728,817.20 to the Federal Ministry of Defense from the Stabilisation Fund
“The Accountant-General has been requested to: Provide the authority for the Funds invested, tenor of the investment, rate of interest payable, certificate for the funds invested and forward same for audit verification; Explain the utilisation of N14,374,728,817.20 for the purpose of funding a new division contrary to the purpose for which the Fund was created; Provide evidence of refund of this sum of N17,187,423,745.56 back to the Stabilisation Fund.
