A non-governmental organisation that advocates transparency and accountability in public expenditure, BudgIT, said in the the Federal government’s 2022 budget expenditure, it uncovered N10 billion in payments made to 18 personal accounts for vague services, under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari.
According BudgIT, amongst the agencies, the Office Of The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta directly paid a total of N4b to two personal accounts—N2b to one Dasimaka Adokiye Sami across 12 transactions & N2m to Ebikabowei Victor Ben across 27 transactions.
It noted that, ”These payments are a clear violation of section 713 of the Public Sector Financial Regulations, 2009.
”FG allocates N81.7bn for streetlight construction in the 2023 budget, higher than the total amount for schools and PHCs combined.
”A total of N81.7b was allocated to the construction of solar street lights in the 2023 FG Capital & Constituency projects. This is higher than the total allocation to schools and primary health centers, which gulp N77.9b and N3.1b, respectively, in the budget.
”The bogus allocation to streetlights is a gross misplacement of priority as Nigeria is also presently littered with non-functional and vandalized streetlights that have stopped working less than two years after their construction.
”Our analysis also discovered that over 687 projects worth N112b were allocated to agencies outside their mandate. The Nigerian Army was allocated N4.5b for the Construction of Dengi-Kwalmiya-Gagdi-Wawus Bauchi Road in Plateau State.
”The Nigerian Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research was assigned N1.2b across four projects to supply medical equipment to health centers in Ogun State, & N580m was allocated to National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, to construct roads & streetlights in Abia State, amongst many others.
”We also discovered a 21% reduction in the percentage of empowerment projects this year compared to last year, where N58b of N100b was allocated to empowerment projects in 2022, while N37b of N100b was allocated to empowerment projects in 2023,” it said.
