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N2.67bn FG school feeding money lodged in private accounts
BY NICHOLAS ABE
The Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof Bolaji Owasanoye, said the agency has discovered N2.67 billion meant for the school feeding programme, released by the federal government during lockdown, in private accounts.
Also discovered was over N2.5 billion diverted by a deceased worker with the ministry of agriculture; 18 buildings, 12 business premises and 25 plots of land, from within the same ministry.
In addition, the anti-corruption body, according to the chairman, has so far recovered N16 billion from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in 2020.
Owasanoye disclosed this in Abuja on Monday, at the second “National Summit on Anti-Corruption in the Public Sector’’, which was organised in collaboration with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
The summit themed, ‘Together Against Corruption’, also included the launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy.
He revealed that under the Open Treasury Portal review carried out between January to August 15, 2020, 72 out of 268 ministries, departments and agencies had cumulative infractions of N90 million.
According to him, while 33 MDAs tendered explanations that N4.1 billion was transferred to sub-Treasury Single Account, N4.2b paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations.
He stated, “We observed that transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into this finding.”
Many Nigerians, groups and organisations had kicked against the introduction of the modified Homegrown School Feeding Programme by the Federal Government during the nationwide lockdown.
Owasanoye said that the N16 billion recovered from the Ministry of Agriculture was moved under suspicious circumstances below the threshold that would put it within the purview of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
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He said that the ministry moved the money into an offline account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) where utilisation would be outside the monitoring purview of GIFMIS.
According to Owasanoye, some of the recovered funds were paid into personal accounts, while others were used for non-official purposes.
“While investigation was ongoing, albeit delayed due to COVID-19, the bulk of the money restrained in CBN was released in the peak of the pandemic when the ministry appealed to the commission that it needed to make palliatives to Nigerians upon Presidential directives.
“The commission is tracking the prescribed use of the funds up till now,’’ he said
Owasanoye added that the commission discovered that payments were made to agriculture contractors for no job done or over payment for jobs done.
He said some were appropriated to projects owned by private farms of senior civil servant of the ministry.
“One individual from the ministry now deceased, appropriated over N2.5 billion to himself and cronies.”
The ICPC boss said the agency was established to investigate and where necessary prosecute corruption related offences and prevent corruption, adding that in its 20 years of existence, it had treated over 20,000 petitions.
Of the 20,000 petitions, Owasanoye said that the commission found 5,000 worthy of investigation and had prosecuted about 1,000 of such cases.
He added that ICPC also within the period conducted 582 reviews comprising personnel and capital budget utilisation of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).