Budget Office Scandal: Senate demands N19b refund from unnamed MDAs

The Nigerian Senate has indicted the Budget Office of the Federation for approving a sum of N19 billion to four unnamed Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) without the required approval from the Minister of Finance.

The Senate has consequently demanded that the Budget Office refunds the sum to the Federation Account from the affected MDAs.

The Senate Committee on Public Accounts, led by Senator Matthew Urhoghide, had commenced an investigation into the alleged illegal payment of N19 billion to the four MDAs by the Budget Office last October. Following the investigation, the Budget Office was unable to present evidence of approval from the Ministry of Finance before making the payment from the Service Wide Vote to the MDAs.

The Budget Office of the Federation had claimed that it had written to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation to request details on the four MDAs without any response. However, the committee noted that the Budget Office failed to present the letter it claimed to have written to the office of the Auditor General.

Due to the Budget Office’s failure to present approval for the payment of N19 billion to the four MDAs, the Senate adopted the report of the Senate Public Accounts Committee on the matter, demanding the refund of the sum to the Nation’s purse.

The query was part of the Auditor General of the Federation’s 2016 report that was submitted to the Senate for consideration last week. The query read, “Four MDAs were paid the sum of N19 billion from the Service Wide Vote without the approval of the Honorable Minister of Finance, some of the payments were made on a purported verbal directive from the Director-General.

This act is against the financial Regulation 301 and 302, which state that ‘recurrent expenditure is paid from the CRF, and no expenditure may be incurred except on the authority of a warrant issued by the Minister of Finance. In view of the above, it is difficult to accept the payment to the MDAs as proper and legitimate charges against the public funds. The Director-General should provide evidence of approval from the Minister of Finance for these expenditures or recover the sum of N19 billion from the benefiting MDAs.”