A presidential directive that all unspent public funds should be returned to the treasury is already yielding results. At the last count, the Federal Government has recouped N450 billion unspent recurrent releases to ministries and parastatals. A Presidency official, who disclosed the figure to The Guardian at the weekend, said that the amount would have been stolen by officials but for the government's tough stance on the issue.

Giving the details of the recovered funds, the source said about N60 billion was recovered at the end of 2007 while another N30 billion was recovered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources from fertilisers contracts and returned to the treasury. The bubble has, however, burst at the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) where the N35 million returned by the National Population Commission (NPC) to the AGF's office has been reported missing.

The cheque of the returned money was alleged to have disappeared and traced to a Lagos bank and some Indian rice merchants by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), which swung into action and arrested two senior officials in the AGF's office over their alleged role in the fraud. Presidency source explained that more ministries and agencies have returned their unspent recurrent votes, raising the total to N450 billion.

President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua had directed ministries to halt further expenditure on 2007 appropriations not spent since the fiscal year had ended. He directed that such monies should immediately be returned to the national coffers. In compliance with this directive, the Senate returned over N7 billion to the public purse. But the same cannot be said of the Ministry of Health where N300 million of such funds was allegedly shared by some of its senior officials.

The scam led to the resignation of both the then Minister of Health, Prof. Adenike Grange and Minister of State for Health, Gabriel Aduku. The two officials and others linked with the fraud have been arraigned in court by the government. Meanwhile, the government has lost about N22 billion meant for fertiliser subsidy in the past eight years. A report issued by the government on the product blamed it on middlemen in the distribution chain.

The Guardian learnt that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture spent about N90 billion on the importation of fertilisers between 1999 and 2007, out of which government paid N22 billion as 25 per cent subsidy to farmers, which was lost to middlemen and suppliers in the distribution network. In the alleged theft of the fund returned by the NPC, a source at the commission told The Guardian that after an extensive investigation, it was discovered that the cheque found its way into the hands of four Indians, who allegedly used the money to import rice into the country.

Three of the Indians were first arrested and the fourth one was later picked up by ICPC operatives.
But the ICPC is not resting on its oars over the matter as it is probing further into how the money got into a bank in Lagos before it was used for the rice deal. The ICPC official, who gave the identities of the Indians, said: "Pretty soon the case will go to court." Also, the ICPC has arraigned in court an Assistant Chief Engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture over an alleged N100, 000 bribe.

The official was arraigned over a three-count charge of corruption before a High Court in Abuja for allegedly demanding and receiving the bribe to pass a contractor's file. In a statement by the commission's spokesman, Mr. Mike Sowe, the accused was said to have violated sections 10 and 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000. According to him, the official, Stephen Ifalolu Ifabiyi, had demanded the N100, 000 from the contractor, identified as Theophilus Agubuzu, to pay the supervisor of the project to facilitate the payment of his money.

The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges while his counsel asked for bail. Judge Hussaini Baba Yusuf of High Court 7, who heard the case, adjourned it till May 28, 2008. He asked the accused to produce a civil servant with the rank of a director, who is resident in Abuja with the sum of N500, 000 as surety.

In the Wema Bank Plc and National Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) financial scam, a Nigerian linked with fraud but now in the United States (U.S.) has reportedly agreed to come home to give an account of his alleged role in the incident to the ICPC. The suspect, the ICPC official said, has assured that he would return by the end of this month to answer the commission's call.

The source added that the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank (CBN) for Financial Sector Surveillance had reported to the commission on several occasions to provide the Interrogation Unit with documents and explanations on the alleged misappropriation of funds and false public declaration of profit by the bank while he was the bank's Managing Director.

He said: "We are investigating both the past and current officials of the bank and the corporation on a daily basis. We hope to get to the root of the matter very soon."

Source: Guardian