Massive looting took place in NSITF in five years —Labour Minister, Ngige 

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige revealed on Friday that massive looting of public funds and various workers› allowances and deductions running into several billions of Naira took place under the former board and management staff of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), within five years.

Ngige,  who was warning the chairmen and members of the boards of three other parastatals being inaugurated under his ministry said a whopping sum of N5 billion was removed in one day in a single voucher.

This,  according to the minister was revealed by the reports from the audit balance.

The Minister pointed out that the NSITF workers cannot get tax clearance certificates,  because their payee tax deductions, housing allowance deductions and their pension deductions were all stolen.

Ngige,  therefore,  warned the newly inaugurated boards of parastatals under the ministry against misappropriation of funds.

Three out of the five boards of parastatals under the ministry was inaugurated on Friday,  which include: the National Directorate of Employment(NDE), National Productivity Centre (NPC) and Michael Imoudu Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS),  Ilorin.

The Minister, who was also giving the reasons why the board of the NSITF was not inaugurated,  said several billions of Naira were misappropriated by the former board and some staff of the NSITF apart from the N5 billion.

He said the warning has therefore  become imperative due to the revelation.

According to him, «NSITF is one of the causalities of such misappropriation which is why their board is not being inaugurated today.»

The Minister said: «They (NSITF) are in arrears of about four to five years and between this four to five years there has been massive looting that took place in that organisation.

“Reports from the audit balance has revealed that a whooping sum of about five billion was removed in one day in a single voucher.

“So therefore, government has decided that we must know how this financial haemorrhage occurred in this organisation and also several sums that is not being accounted for and running into billions.

“So today as we speak, workers in that organisation cannot even get tax clearance certificates as their payee tax deductions, housing allowance deductions and their pension deductions are all taken away, stolen.

“Therefore, you can now see why we want you to be guided by the financial rules and regulations and to ensure that you implement it to the latter.‘’

He stated that one of the principles of the Financial Regulations in Section 32 of the financial regulations states that “parastatals must be rendered financial account of inflow and outflow of funds through their boards to the ministry.”

“I charge you to make sure that this is done in the spirit of change as this administration has zero tolerance for corruption.

“It will, therefore, be irregular and indeed unacceptable for you to ask your management to provide fringe benefits that you are not entitled to,” he said.

Accord ingredients to him, the board of parastatals are responsible for setting out the parastatal’s economic, financial, operational and administrative policies, programmes and targets in line with the overall objectives as provided by the government.

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Ngige also said that the role of governing board was therefore to drive general policy formulation and implementation and not be involved in the day to day running of the agencies.

The Minister charged the board to ensure capacity building, job creation, productivity, promotion, generation of wealth, labour education and sustained development of the country.

He said: “It is obvious that the challenge before the board of this establishment is one of re-engineering and developing new strategies.