Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF), Mr Anthony Ayine has uncovered a N175,172,208,105 shortfall in non-mineral revenues shared by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) in 2017.
This was as he recommended recovery of N224,209,885 from National Judicial Council (NJC) arising from irregular contract variation for the construction of retirement residence of retired Chief Justice of Nigeria House No VII, located at plot 1850 CAD A04, Asokoro, Abuja.
The recommendation is contained in the 2017 audit report of the AuGF released recently.
Ayine made the disclosure in a 2017 audit report of federal agencies. The report also revealed that revenue generating agencies were underpaid N1,515,035,124 as their cost of collecting revenue for government.
On non-mineral revenue, the AuGF said what was meant to be shared among the three tiers of government was N1,879,493,144,679 but that only N1,704,320,936,573 was actually shared thereby leading to a difference of N175,172,208,105.
On his recommendation to fill those gaps, Ayine said; “FAAC is hereby required to share the balance of N175,172,208,105.56 to the three tiers of government or provide appropriate explanation relating to the use of the money”.
As regards the N1,515,035, 124 being underpayment for cost of revenue collection, the report noted that Nigeria Customs Service and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) ought to have received the money.
“The collecting agencies were underpaid, and as a result, the amount shared by the three tiers of Government for the year 2017 was overstated by N1,515,035,124.
“Underpayment of this nature may have implications for cash flow and for the funding of operations. The sum of N1,515,035,124.24 unpaid cost of collection due to the collecting agencies should be refunded to them”.
The audit report also uncovered due process abuse at the Federal Civil Service Commission on contract award for projects.
According to the report, a contract was awarded contract to a company in the sum of N25,856,279 on behalf of Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the execution of development/upgrade of online recruitment in April 2014.
“Audit scrutiny revealed that due process was not adhered to in the award, as there were no traces of supporting memo from Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, minutes of Tenders Board meetings, letter of award from Procurement Department and job Completion Certificate from ICT Department in the vouchers examined.
“Further investigation by my office revealed that the exercise was later suspended, yet the Commission went ahead and paid the affected company vide payment vouchers (PVs) Nos. FCSC/OC/47/011/625/215 dated 19/11/15 and FCSC/OC/47/011/625 dated 15/02/15 with amount of N17,310,655 and N8,545,624 respectively, totalling N25,856,279, thereby violating Financial Regulation 708 which stipulates that “On no account should payment be made for services not yet performed or for goods not yet supplied”.
Financial Regulation 415 also sanctions non-adherence to economy for all officers responsible for expenditure.
Sun
