Fraud: Budget Office Credited N791m To NTI Account Without Any Request, Bursar Tells Reps

The House of Representatives Wednesday expressed shock at the revelation by the Bursar of the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) Kaduna, Mallam Abdulkarim Affo,  that a whopping N791million was credited  into the Institute’s bank account on December 31, 2012 by the Budget Office from the Service Wide Vote (SWV) account without prior request for any financial assistance.

The bursar disclosed this when he appeared before the House Committee on Public Accounts, which is probing how the over N4.7trillion was expended by the Presidency through the Budget Office from the Service Wide Vote between 2004 and 2012 financial years .

Testifying before the committee, the bursar said:  “On December 31st 2012,we just received an alert and the sum of N791million was credited into the Institute’s bank account from the Budget Office without any prior request for financial assistance from the Federal Government. We tried to make enquiries and we wrote to the Office of the Accountant ant General of the Federation to find out what was the purpose of the whopping amount but all efforts yielded no result.

” At end of the day, what the Institute did was to pay back the money to the treasury at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as required by the law of the federation. We have the evidence of payment, we never made request for any money,” he added.

Reacting to the revelation, chairman of the House committee, Hon Solomon Adeola Olamilekan, directed the Institute to furnish it with the official Treasury receipt to show that it actually returned the money to the Treasury as claimed and not that it actually went into individual bank accounts while further investigations into how the money got into the Institute’s Account in the first instance continue.

He described the transaction through the Service Wide Vote as a monumental fraud which had been allegedly going on for a long time unabated and lamented that several billions of naira of the tax payers’ money had gone down the drain.

According him.” Only last week, the NAFDAC officials appeared before the Committee over the whopping sum of N5billion claimed to have released to the Agency by the Budget Office from the Service wide vote and Agency claimed it received only N365million from the amount.

“Also, just a while ago, the National Boundary Commission appeared before the Committee over the N2billion the Budget Office claimed it released to the Commission which the Commission also denied ever receiving a kobo from the Budget Office under the Service Wide Vote. Where are we heading to? We must get to the root of these claims and counter claims. The fraud must stop, ” he lamented.

“It is disheartening that the National Assembly approved about N2.1 trillion for the Service Wide Vote Account in the period under review but at the last count over N4.7 trillion had been expended by the Executive.”

SAINT MUGAGA, ABUJA.

Source: THEWILL, http://thewillnigeria.com. Posted date: February 19, 2014

THEWILL_ Posted date: February 19, 2014http://thewillnigeria.com

BEYOND THE BOKO HARAM NEGOTIATION WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA

The Boko Haram crisis started on the heels of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential nomination processes of 2011. The wanton wastage of lives and property is strictly a political retaliation against the candidacy and eventual election of Goodluck Jonathan. The president confirmed this himself by saying that the Boko Haram has members in the present political ruling class including his cabinet. Recent revelations have indicted some of them but they are still free, with no meaningful investigation or prosecution. It appears that there is a high-powered conspiracy of the politically aggrieved to deal with the Jonathan presidency. It is rather unfortunate that the leadership of this same PDP have not engaged themselves on the fundamental issues troubling the party internally.

When the president came up with the idea of the single-term tenure, it was the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) that opposed it vehemently. The Northern leaders who felt cheated by the election of President Jonathan in 2011 would have supported the single-term tenure if it has scaled through the National Assembly. Attacks are launched whenever there is any comment or debate that puts Jonathan forward as the best candidate for the 2015 presidential election. Attacks are however suspended whenever there is an anti-Jonathan campaign at any level e.g. the Fuel Subsidy Removal Protest at the Freedom Park in Lagos.

The Boko Haram leadership has defended the sect as “fighting for God”. But this is far-fetched, knowing fully well the genesis of the crisis – the election of President Goodluck Jonathan. Members of the sect pretend as if the mass destruction of life in the North, and the comprehensive economic wreckage serves anyone any good. The ruling class thought that the presidency can put an end to insurrection in any region of the country.

There were once the militants in the Niger-Delta creeks that fought vehemently against perceived marginalization of its people leading to wanton wastage of lives and properties. The Igbos are still aggrieved that they have not had a democratically elected president in the presidential villa since Independence over 50 years ago. It has been said over and over again that no region has the monopoly of violence. Those who think destroying the once peaceful and serene environments in most parts of the North would meet their agitation should have a rethink.

The whole crisis as it stands now is beyond Goodluck Jonathan, and his presidency as of today. It requires all Nigerians’ attention and collective response. The ruling class should not play to the gallery when it comes to the issue of security. It is when we have internal security that we can boast of political stability and economic growth and development. The convocation of a National Conference is long overdue. Many issues still trail the political injustices across the length and breadth of Nigeria. The National assembly should, for once, climb down its high legislative horse, and accept that Nigeria needs to realign its political infrastructure to survive.

There cannot be a State of Emergency when there is an avenue that accommodates every citizen irrespective of their political inclination to sit at a roundtable. The best time to call for a National Conference is now.