On Tuesday, the House of Representatives received a report from the Public Accounts Committee on the investigation into the disbursement and management of N1.324 trillion in COVID-19 funds.
Speaking before laying the report, Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Hon. Bamidele Salam, disclosed that the report covered the period between 2020 and 2022, during which the committee invited no fewer than 92 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
According to him, the investigation conducted by the Committee was in adherence to the House resolution, which followed a motion passed on October 17, 2023, on the alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 intervention funds.
The reports reveal a trail of mismanagement, non-compliance, and outright violations of procurement laws and financial regulations by various MDAs and private sector beneficiaries.
The report, which quoted records from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, gave a breakdown of inflows totalling N1.32 trillion.
A breakdown of the inflow showed that out of the total sum of N1.32 trillion, the Nigerian equivalent of USD$3.4 billion donations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) grant to the Federal Government stood at N1.283,214,581,802.89, while the Federal Government intervention stood at N34.400 billion.
The oAGF reports also disclosed that general donations raked in N6,091,594,929.88, while donation from the China General Chamber of Commerce stood at N48.120 million, respectively.
Similarly, donation from the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board stood at N70 million, while Remita e-payments transited of N50 million.
The oAGF report further showed that some of the MDAs that appeared before the House Committee on Public Accounts include the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, the Federal Ministry of Finance, university teaching hospitals, federal medical centres, specialised health institutions, and the Rural Electrification Agency (REA).
The report read in part: “There were many cases of non-appearance, delayed appearance, non-submission of required documents, and late submission of documents by some MDAs of government who got funds from the Federal Government COVID-19 intervention funding.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria did not provide the required information on time despite several letters written by the Committee.
“There were several cases of deliberate refusal by some beneficiary entities to provide the certificates of no-objection issued to them by the Bureau of Public Procurement on procurements during the pandemic for verification by the Committee.
“There were several instances of unjustifiable delay in procurements by Chief Executive Officers contrary to provisions of the Procurement Act for which funds were released between 2020 and 2021 but yet to be completed till date.
“The committee observed that most of the private sector beneficiaries of the COVID-19 Intervention Funding used the funds for purposes other than those for which they were approved by the disbursing MDAs.”
The report also indicted some airline operators: “The most apparent examples were private airline operators like Arik Air, Air Peace, Dana Airline, Azman Air, Max Air, Aero Contractors Overland, and others, as well as other subsidiary airport service providers who used the funds provided for activities in their normal course of operations rather than payment of staff salaries or maintenance of aircraft during the period of shutdown.
“The airline operators also shun invitations to provide more information on the use of funds received from the Federal Government. A private airline operator (King Airlines and Travels Limited), which received a sum of N15 million and kept the money in a dedicated account, has, however, offered to refund the money to the Federal Government.
“Investigation also reveals that few of the MDAs diverted their COVID-19 intervention funds to different programmes/projects for which similar budgetary provisions had adequately been made in the Appropriation Acts for the period under review.
“Some medical centres and teaching hospitals claimed to have refunded unspent balances of their funds to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission dedicated accounts without providing pieces of evidence of such refunds.”
The Committee, during the investigation, further established instances of “outright violation of the Procurement Act for works and services, Financial Regulations, violation of provisions of extant circulars on approval limits, as well as unauthorised virement of funds by many MDAs.”
Meanwhile, Hon. Bamidele assured that the Committee will soon make public Volume 2 of the investigative report, which, he said, concerns the utilisation of funds by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment, the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, and other institutions, including the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHDA), the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and the Nigeria Police Force, among others.
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