The Senate Committee on Public Account has uncovered N2.2 billion unaccounted expenditure collected by the Federal Ministry of Justice, between 2017 and 2021 from the Service Wide Votes (SWV).
The Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide is currently investigating over 200 agencies that benefited from SWV, between 2017 and 2021 which is about N5 trillion.
SWV which is also known as the Consolidated Revenue Fund Charge is almost the country’s equivalent of contingency fund in the annual budget.
Investigation revealed that the Service Wide Votes (SWV) collected by the Ministry of Justice was not subjected to the scrutiny of the Office of Auditor General of the Federation and was not also privy to the Senate Standing Committee mandated to oversight the agency.
It was revealed that N955 million via AIEs was released to the Ministry from SWV in 2017, but the record made available by the Ministry showed N549 million which showed a difference of N406 missing .
In 2018, the Ministry claimed to have received N492 million , but the releases from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, showed that N591 million was released which showed that N99 million is yet to be accounted for .
Similarly, in 2019, the record from the Accountant General Office showed that the Ministry collected N650 million under Capital project with line item of ‘Critical need’, the Ministry failed to produce record that backed up the N650 million.
In the 2020, the record showed that the Ministry collected N62 million for recurrent.
Finally, in 2021, N1.4 billion was released from the Office of Accountant General through AIEs for recurrent expenditure, but the Ministry claimed to have received N400 million.
The Ministry unable to present the letters of request and approval for the money collected from Service Wide Votes.
However, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry B.E Jeddy said that the Ministry would search for the relevant documents and present to the Committee on November 10.
The Chairman of the Committee, while speaking during the hearing said that the fund was not audited by the Auditor General, because they are not budgetary provision.
According to him, it was not audited by the Auditor General at all, they are not budgetary provision, go and tell everyone that benefited from it and give us the necessary documents.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry ,assured the committee to present relevant departments that benefited from the fund and feed the committee back.
