IN continuation of the regular season of absurdity that they have become accustomed to, Nigerians had yet another dubious alibi thrust upon them by an agency of government last week as past and present management staff of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) struggled, during a Senate appearance, to justify the agency’s spending of N17.158 billion in 2013. The money, transferred by the NSITF from its Skye and First Bank accounts into various untraceable accounts belonging to individuals and companies from January 2013 to December 2013, was never properly accounted for, and the 2018 report by the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation said that much. But as is usual with legislative probes and appearances, this particular session transmuted into a farce very quickly as the NSITF management blamed the inability to produce some of the documents required to justify the curious expenditure on the activities of, of all things, termites!
The Auditor-General’s office had in the report in question raised 50 different queries bordering on alleged misappropriation of funds by the management of the agency, forcing the Senate Committee on Public Accounts to begin a probe. Said part of the report: “The management of NSITF as shown in statements of Account No. 1750011691 with Skye Bank Plc, for the period 1st January 2013 to 20th December 2013, and Statements of Account No.2001754610 with First Bank Plc for the period 7th January 2013 to 28th February 2013, transferred amounts totalling N17,158,883,034.69 billion to some persons and companies from these accounts. However, payment vouchers relating to the transfers together with their supporting documents were not provided for audit. Consequently, the purpose(s) for the transfers could not be authenticated. These are in violation of the Financial Rule 601 which states that ‘all payment entries in the cashbook/accounts shall be vouched for on one of the prescribed treasury forms. Vouchers shall be made out in favour of the person or persons to whom the money is actually due. Under no circumstances shall a cheque be raised, or cash paid for services for which a voucher has not been raised’.”
The NSITF management could not offer satisfactory explanations on the undocumented multiple transfers. Those at the helm of affairs in 2013 told the committee that they left documents like vouchers behind, but the claim was dismissed by the present Managing Director of NSITF, Dr Michael Akabogu. Akabogu said: “The container in which the said documents were kept by past management has not only been beaten by rains over the years but has possibly been eaten up by termites. As directed by this committee, I told the past management officers to help us out in answering this query with necessary documents, which have not been made available to us.” And while the agency’s managing director from 2010 to 2016, Mallam Umar Munir Abubakar, said that he was unaware of the query and had no explanations for it since the audit was not based on his tenure, his successor, Mr Adebayo Somefun, who was head of the agency from May 2017 to July 2020, toed a different path. He insisted that personnel of the agency’s Accounts Department should be able to trace the documents which the current General Manager of Finance claimed had been locked up in an abandoned container within the premises of the agency in Abuja. The NSITF bosses have been asked to re-appear before the committee with all the requested documents on September 22.
Previously, Nigerians heard of snakes swallowing examination money and rats sacking their president from office, but the NSITF has brought a new dimension into the tragi-comedy. It is a nation ready to descend into a financial quagmire that would allow public funds to be transferred into “various untraceable accounts belonging to individuals and companies,” but that, precisely, is what the NSITF has been accused of doing. The government is on a borrowing spree, yet stories of fraud are rampant, giving fillip to the widely held belief among the populace that the loans taken on their behalf hardly benefit them. Besides, if Nigerians are still being treated to comic stories about animals and the elements—in this particular instance, rain—it is because those in charge of affairs do not expect any recompense for their criminal actions. Just how can any agency be complaining of files, rains and termites in this day and age? Are there no electronic copies? Or have they been consumed by viruses?
The NSITF’s alibi should scandalise its leadership, workers and the general public. It smacks of the highest level of irresponsibility. Did the termites in question finish consuming all the papers through one big massive attack or gradually over a period of time? Which organ of the NSITF and which officer had the duty of keeping and overseeing the papers? What were they doing while termites and rains were eating them up? The bottom line is that the officials know that no consequences will attend the current probe, so they are unfazed by their ridiculous explanation. If there were proper penalties for infringement, especially in relation to corruption, many would not be so lackadaisical in their attitude to official issues.
We hope that the government, at some point, will wake up to the responsibility of punishing infractions in order to stem this ugly trend. The NSITF is a good place to start. The government should surprise Nigerians for once by getting to the root of the ridiculous and scandalous development at the NSITF.
and then