How Presidential Amnesty Programme Illegally Withdrew Over N6billion, Paid Tuition For Students Without Records — Report
These include payment of tuition fees to various universities for students under the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) without records of their identity.
Areport by the Auditor-General of the Federation has exposed a shocking withdrawal of over N6billion without proper auditing processes.
These include payment of tuition fees to various universities for students under the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) without records of their identity.
The report highlights a blatant disregard for financial regulations, with N1.53 billion paid as tuition fees without supporting documents.
This is a clear breach of Paragraph 708 of the Financial Regulations, 2009, which states that payment should not be made for services not yet performed or goods not yet supplied.
Furthermore, the report reveals widespread breaches of Paragraph 603(i) of the FR 2009, which requires vouchers to contain full particulars of each service, including dates, numbers, quantities, distances, and rates.
These findings are alarming and underscore the need for greater transparency and accountability in the management of public funds.
“The sum of N1,529,669,500 were paid to various universities as tuition fees for students under PAP and relevant supporting documents such as receipts, evidence of payments, admission letter, etc were not attached to the paid vouchers,” the report indicated.
While attributed the irregularities to weakness in the international control system at the PAP Abuja, the report noted that it had reached out to the management of the PAP, but got no response.
In the same vein, the report said a total of N3.62billion was raised without an internal audit check.
It said the PAP authorities did not provide a reason for non-compliance with the provisions of the extant regulations on internal audit checks were not provided, leading to the loss of public funds and unapproved payments.
The sum of N1.3bn was also approved, paid and entered into the cash book without raising paid vouchers.
A further peruse of the report also saw the sum of N29 million granted as cash advances to officers of the programme for procurement of goods and services above the advances limit of N200,000.
“Some officers were granted multiple advances without evidence of retiring previous advances granted them, contrary to the previous extant regulations,” the report added.
The sum of N87.7million was also paid for the purchase of various store items and “there was no evidence provided to show that the items were taken on store ledger charge,” the report said.
“Since the management failed to respond to the issue raised, the findings remain valid until the management implements the recommendations,” the OAuGF wrote in its evaluation.
It recommended that the interim administration of the PAP should be requested to justify to the National Assembly why it made such payment without supporting documents, recover and remit to treasury the mismanaged fund, and forward evidence of remittance to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly.
It also recommended other sanctions relating to irregular payments prescribed in paragraph 3106 of the Financial Regulations, 2009.
