ICPC uncovers N400bn projects: The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) says various ministries, departments and agencies have duplicated projects worth N300 billion and N100 billion in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Bolaji Owasanoye, chairman, ICPC, disclosed this during a panel meeting with the senate committee on finance on Thursday.
Owosanoye said ICPC uncovers N400bn projects, discovered that out of the N13.59 trillion for the 2021 budget, N300 billion was shoved and N100 billion was also inserted into the N17.12 trillion 2022 budget by some MDAs as duplicated projects.
He also added that N49.9 billion was traced as salaries for ghost workers between January and June of 2022.
“Three hundred billion naira would have been wasted by the federal government on duplicated projects inserted into the 2021 budget and N100 billion for the same purpose in the current fiscal year, if not tracked and intercepted by ICPC,” he said.
“The same preemptive move saved the country from spending N49.9 billion for salaries of ghost workers put on fictitious payrolls by the fraudulent MDAs between January and June this year.”
The ICPC added that the names of MDAs involved in the act were available and would be forwarded to the committee.
“The good thing about the preemptive moves made by us is that monies for the fraudulent acts were prevented from being released to the affected MDAs, and it is gratifying that the finance ministry and accountant general office cooperated with us,” he said.
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He, however, urged relevant committees of the national assembly to have in-depth information for the proposed N19.76 trillion 2023 budget, which might also have duplicated projects.
“From our end, detection of such projects are done by verifying their locations and names upon which we tell the appropriate authorities not to release wrongly budgeted monies for them,” he added.
Reacting to this discovery, Olamilekan Adeola, chairman of the committee, appreciated the agency for painstakingly doing the investigation.
He also said the operational cost of the anti-graft agency would be increased.
“This committee is impressed by the proactive ways your commission is adopting in the fight against corruption,” he said.
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