Senate Panel Summons IPPIS Over Missing N113m Service Wide Votes

The Senate has summoned officials of Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) over the missing N113 million disbursed from Service Wide Votes (SWV) from the Office of Accountant General of the Federation (AGF).

This is just as the members of Senate Committee on Public Accounts uncovered violation of procedures in disbursement of Service Wide Votes to Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

Senate Panel is currently probing disbursement of N4.9 trillion Service Wide Votes between 2017 and 2021.

While the Senate Public Accounts Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide has been able to establish that the N113 million disbursed from the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) to Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the recurrent expenditure in May 2017 was neither requested nor received by the examination body.

However, the record from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation did not show that the N113 million was reversed to the Federation Account.

Appearing before the Senate Public Accounts, the Director of Cash Management from the Ministry of Finance who represented the Permanent Secretary, Aliyu Ahmed, told the lawmakers that JAMB did not apply for the N113 million but the request was made from the Ministry of Finance on their behalf in 2017 and the money was raised from Service Wide Votes.

According to him, JAMB did not request the N113 million for recurrent, the Ministry of Finance made the request for them when we observed the gap and the money was not released to JAMB, but returned to IPPIS and at the end of the year was mopped up automatically.

But, the committee chaired by Senator Urhoghide observed that there is no record from Accountant General of the Federation that the money was reversed back to the Federation Account.

The committee also observed that many agencies received a disbursement of Service Wide Votes without any request which is an outright violation of procedures in releasing of Service Wide Votes because there must be a request and approval must be given by the president before it can be released.

The representative of the Auditor General of Federation, Bamigbaye Oludotun also said that Authority to Incure Expenditure (AIE) was raised from Office of Accountant General of Federation in favour of JAMB and the examination body did not receive the money and it was never reversed.

He however submitted that the money is with IPPIS, adding that most agencies use to complain that they did not receive the money and the money will not be reversed, it means authority of approval was never obtained.

“I think the committee has to call IPPIS to testify,” he said.

Speaking on the issue, the chairman said the money was never reversed with the narration on the AIE, adding that JAMB did not request for the money and the ministry just made the projection on behalf of JAMB and this elicited the committee’s suspicion.