How N329bn Govt funds was paid into personal accounts – BudgIT

BudgIT has revealed how government funds were paid into personal accounts and several records with vague descriptions were also detected on the Open Treasury Portal.

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BudgIT made the disclosure in a statement posted on its official Twitter page on Thursday.

The Minister of Finance launched the Open Treasury portal on the 9th of December, for the purpose of increasing government transparency and providing a comprehensive space for the collation of government spending data at the federal level and for federal MDAs.

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BudgIT explained that over 5000 payments without descriptions to the tune of N278bn and over 2900 payment records totalling N51bn paid into personal accounts with vague descriptions, among other huge discrepancies were discovered.

Part of the statement reads: “Between January and July 2019, we discovered that large sums were paid into personal accounts; including several records with vague descriptions. Over 2900 payment to individuals were recorded at an aggregate value of N51bn.”

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“A few examples include N2.04bn, N2.04bn and N1bn paid into personal accounts on the 21st of June 2019 without any payment description along with another N68m payment for “Ogunsuyi” and N15.8m for “international” on other dates.

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“In the same 2019, we also discovered payment records without description or beneficiary information. At least 5,000 payment records valued at N278bn were without descriptions and 275 payment records with a value of N43bn were without a beneficiary name. These inconspicuous payments cannot be assessed or traced by citizens and interested parties, thereby defeating the purpose of the platform to foster transparency.”

BudgIT urged the Federal Government to investigate the payments and also called for the standardization of the portal to prevent such in future.

“BudgIT, therefore calls on the government to promptly rectify these highlighted fault lines of the portal. We also call for standardization of the portal such that it will impossible to input incomplete vague information. it is also important to investigate payments into personal accounts on the portal as this largely undermines the objective of creating the portal.”

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