N2.67bn school feeding funds found in private accounts –ICPC

The Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, says the agency has discovered N2.67bn meant for the school feeding program in private accounts. The agency, he added, also found over N2.5bn diverted by a deceased worker with the ministry of agriculture, noting that 18 buildings, 12 business premises, and 25 plots of land, were also recovered in the ministry. Owasanoye disclosed this in Abuja on Monday at the second National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector, which was organized in collaboration with the Office of the Secretary of the Government of the Federation. The summit with the theme, ‘Together against corruption’, also included the launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy. He said under the Open Treasury Portal review carried out between January and August 15, 2020, 72 out of 268 ministries, departments, and agencies had cumulative infractions of N90m. According to him, while 33 MDAs explained that N4.1bn was transferred to sub-Treasury Single Account, N4.2bn paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations. He stated, “We observed that transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67bn during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts.” The ICPC chairman also said under its 2020 constituency and executive projects tracking initiative, 722 projects with a threshold of N100m (490 ZIP and 232 executives) were tracked across 16 states. He noted that the constituency tracking project of the agency compelled 59 contractors to return to sites, adding that the individuals handling the projects worth N2.25bn had abandoned the projects before the ICPC’s intervention. The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), said his regime would not relent in its efforts to eradicate corruption in the country. He reiterated his position that if corruption was not eradicated, the menace would kill the country. Buhari spoke at the second national summit of the ICPC and the inauguration of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy to mark the commission’s 20th and Nigeria’s 60th independence anniversaries.