The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Monday said it has discovered N2.67 billion meant for school feeding programme during the lockdown paid into personal bank accounts.
The Chairman of ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, revealed this in his keynote address at the second National Summit on Diminishing Corruption with the theme: “Together Against Corruption and the launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy” held at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Prof. Owasanoye said early this year, the Commission based on intelligence seized over 16bn from Federal Ministry of Agriculture because the money was moved under suspicious circumstances below the threshold of monitoring by Accountant- General. He also said in same ministry, payments were found to be made to contractors for no job done or overpayments for jobs done and appropriation of projects on private farms of senior civil servants.
The anti-graft agency also discovered N2.5 billion appropriated by a senior civil servant (now deceased) in the Ministry of Agric for himself and cronies. It listed other assets recovered in the Agric ministry to include 18 buildings, 12 business premises, and 25 plots of land.
The Professor said under the Open Treasury Portal review carried out between January to August 15, 2020, out of 268 Ministries, Departments and Agendas (MDAs) 72 of them had cumulative infractions of N90 million. He said while 33 MDAs tendered explanations that N4.1 billion was transferred to sub-TSA, N4.2 billion paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations.
According to him, “We observed that transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored.
“Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into these findings.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq has dissociated herself from a trending report in the media titled “N2.72b for School Feeding during Lockdown Diverted to Private Accounts.”
In a statement signed and released by the Special Assistant to the minister on media, Nneka Ikem Anizebe on Monday, it reads: “The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development hereby informs the public that the Federal Government Colleges school feeding in question is different from the Home Grown School Feeding which is one of its Social Investment Programmes.”
“That the School Feeding under scrutiny is feeding of students in Federal Government Colleges across the country and is not under the ministry which only oversees Home Grown School Feeding for children in Primaries 1-3 in select public schools across the country.”
“That the Ministry or the Minister does not even handle or disburse funds for @NHGSFP.”
“That money for funding the Programme never passes through neither the Minister nor the ministry.”
“That the over N2.5 billion which was reportedly misappropriated by a senior civil servant (name withheld) took place in a different ministry and not the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.”
“That the ICPC recovered N16 billion worth of assets from the said ministry which was paid into an individual account for non-official purposes and not the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development describes those casting aspersions on Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq as malicious and unfair and calls on the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to publish the names of persons, federal colleges and school heads whose names have been found to be associated with the missing funds and also freeze the accounts where the said funds were diverted.”
“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, therefore, calls on the general public to disregard the false reports being linked to the ministry as it is not in any way involved in the Federal Government Colleges School Feeding.”
