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By Chinelo Obogo
Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), a civic organisation, has disclosed that out of N2.2 trillion released from the 2019 budget, 70 federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) failed to account for N455.14billion.
PLSI, through its Value for Money advocacy project, carried out a detailed analysis of the 2019 budget audit report submitted by the Auditor General of the Federation, Adolphus Aghughu, to the National Assembly in August last year, which indicted 70 MDAs for fiscal abuses.
The executive director of PLSI, Olusegun Elemo, explained in a statement that its report was produced to provide simplified budget audit linked analytical context to the 2019 annual report of the Auditor General(AG) on the account of the FG but that the document does not substitute for the 2019 audit report of the AG and is not in conflict or contradiction with its data.
In PLSI’s analysis, a total of 394 audit issues, 603 risks on public finance management, 342 management responses and 1,528 audit recommendations were drawn from the 2019 audit report and it made 1528 recommendations.
Some of the government institutions covered in the PLSI analysis include the Federal Medical Center, Keffi, which was unable to account for N17.7billion; Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development could not account for N60.6 billion, the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing couldn’t account for N1.2billion, Anambra-Imo River Basin Development Authority, Owerri, couldn’t account for N5.85billion; Bank of Agriculture couldn’t account for N350 million; Department of Petroleum Resources couldn’t account for N275.6 million, while the Code of Conduct Tribunal couldn’t account for N516.5million.
“Our detailed analysis of the 2019 audit report revealed that 20 per cent of 2019 budget failed to perform and N455.14 billion was not accounted for in 70 MDAs.
“PLSI highlighted 70 Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government indicted for several fiscal abuses in the Auditor General’s report for 2019. A total of 394 audit issues, 603 risks on public finance management, 342 management responses and 1,528 audit recommendations were drawn from the 2019 audit report.
“While approved budgets for all 70 agencies analysed was N3.79trillion, funds released to the MDAs in 2019 stood at N2.2trillion. However, the sum of N455.14billion (20.69 per cent of funds released in 2019) was not accounted for by these agencies,” Elemo said.
The analysis highlighted reasons given by the management of the affected MDAs, with the Bank of Agriculture saying that joint recovery outing of the head, zonal and branch offices will intensify loan recovery and make use of the courts to prosecute chronic defaulters.
The Anambra-Imo River Basin said the unspent balance of 2019 was rolled over to 2020 and that the details of the funds made available to it are available for verification, while FMC, Keffi said that the tender fees and sale of assets of the Centre was remitted to government coffers after applying the 25 per cent charge.
