Posted by By TONY ICHEKU, Abuja on
Efforts by the Independent Corrupt Practices and related Offences Commission (ICPC) to track unspent budgetary allocations which are not returned to the Treasury has begun to yield fruit, with over N2.6 billion recovered in 2006.
Efforts by the Independent Corrupt Practices and related Offences Commission (ICPC) to track unspent budgetary allocations which are not returned to the Treasury has begun to yield fruit, with over N2.6 billion recovered in 2006.
A personnel audit of the federal ministries, parastatals and departments begun by the Commission since 2006 revealed that such funds are misappropriated by crafty civil servants through creative accounting to cover their tracks. To siphon the unspent funds, the funds are illegally transferred from one sub-head to another but passed as genuine expenditure for accounting purposes.
According to the study, the unspent funds are arbitrarily misappropriated through routing to such ambiguous sub-heads like 'over head costs". In some cases, the funds are transferred from 'Personnel Costs" to 'Overhead Cost" to escape detection
The study reveals that the practice had persisted for so long as unethical and unprofessional accounting practices were used to cover the track of such funds.
Sources at the ICPC told Saturday Sun, that the scam at the Federal Ministry of Health is an instance of such practice, as there was no budgetary allocation for the sub-head under which the money was shared.
The practice which was described as criminal, as it contravenes certain portions of the ICPC Act attracts imprisonment on conviction. However, a source at ICPC explained that for now, the commission has not been brought into the affair as it is being handled by the office of the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation.