ICPC indicts 51 health institutions over 2020 budget

By our reporter

The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) said, after reviewing the 2020 Budget, it had uncovered manipulations by ministries, department and agencies (MDAs) leading to the indictment of 51 health sector institutions.

The Chairman of the Commission, Prof Olaniyi Owasanonye, who disclosed this on Wednesday, said a total sum of N147 billion was also mopped up in 2020 alone and N42 billion on personnel costs in 2019.

Owasanonye made these disclosures while speaking at a one-day interactive session titled: “Transparency and Fiscal Discipline in Implementation of FGN,” jointly organised with the Budget Office of the Federation (BoF) in Abuja.

He further stated that the Commission’s findings from the review that covered personnel cost allocation and capital development fund between 2017 and 2020 showed manipulations by most MDAs that received both appropriation and releases beyond their actual needs.

According to him, the ICPC system review, though statutory, was triggered off by the 2017 Auditor-General’s Annual Audit that indicted some educational institutions.

He said, “In 2019, ICPC reviewed 208 agencies of government that are funded from the Federal Treasury and came up with outstanding results which included the discovery of N31.8bn personnel cost surpluses for 2017 and 2018, and misapplication of N19.8bn and N9.2bn from Personnel Cost and Capital Fund respectively.

“Consequent on these findings, a sum of N42bn unspent surplus allocations for Personnel Cost for 2019 alone was blocked from possible abuse and pilfering mostly from health and some educational institutions.

“This implies that if we had covered the entire civil service structure of all MDAs the figures would be staggering.

“Summary of Findings from 51 Health Sector Institutions include padding of nominal rolls including the inclusion of outsourced staff, warrant releases in excess of actual personnel cost needs, inadequate budgetary overhead allocation and inadequate or non-budgetary allocation for outsourced services.”

He also listed other infractions to include, widespread misuse of Personnel Cost allocation on non-personnel related expenditure especially on outsourced services (N4.5bn), unspent excess balances despite abuses and misuse (N4.86bn) and fraudulent diversion by role players of funds through manipulation of account numbers of beneficiaries on the GIFMIS Platform.

According to him, there were also the discoveries that Remita payment system not allowing for the matching of account numbers with account names and thus making fraud easy, in addition to inordinate balance staffing levels between Teaching Hospitals and Federal Medical Centres.

Also speaking, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed said measures had been put in place by the government to ensure that Nigeria exits the current recession as soon as possible.

The minister, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Aliyu Shinkafi, said as part of measures to curb incessant lock out of MDAs from IPPIS, a committee headed by the D-G, Budget Office, had been constituted to make recommendation on how to resolve the issue.

“It is my hope that today’s interactive session will make recommendations on how to enhance transparency and fiscal discipline in the implementation of the FGN Budget,” she added.