N33.75bn Cash Transfer Fund Missing?

The Auditor-General  of the Federation’s 2024 Annual Report on Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government, which raised questions about the disbursement of N33.75bn in cash transfers to vulnerable households, has once again highlighted the endemic nature of corruption in Nigeria.

According to the report, there is insufficient evidence that the N33.75bn in cash transfers intended for more than 3.29 million vulnerable households reached their intended beneficiaries.

The report, which reviewed transactions at the National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO) in Abuja for the 2023 financial year, raised eight queries involving billions of naira and identified weaknesses in the office’s internal control system.

The auditors observed that although the intended beneficiaries were drawn from the National Social Register and enrolled in the National Beneficiary Register across 35 states in 2023, the paid vouchers did not contain the full details of the beneficiaries. The Remita statement required to reconcile those who received payments with those listed on the register was not provided for examination.

Nothing exposes the intent of those behind the disbursement more clearly than the auditors’ disclosure that “All efforts to obtain access to the REMITA statement were obstructed and denied by NCTO accounts staff, thereby frustrating the audit process.”

N33.75bn is not a small sum, especially when the funds are intended for poor and vulnerable households scattered across the country. When the staff responsible for its disbursement failed to provide evidence that it was disbursed to the intended beneficiaries, it can safely be concluded that the money was either misappropriated, outrightly diverted, or paid to ineligible or fictitious persons.

We are disturbed that the cash transfer programme has consistently been abused, thereby undermining its very purpose. But why was it so easy for the programme to be abused? How come, despite persistent reports of abuse and alarming corruption, there has been no clear-cut prosecution?

To address the intolerably high rate of poverty and provide socio-economic support for vulnerable groups, the federal government established Nigeria’s National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).

Whether it is N-Power, which provided job training and skills acquisition alongside work tools and monthly stipends to young Nigerians; the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), which offers direct financial support to extremely poor and vulnerable households to help meet basic needs and improve education; the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), which provides microcredit loan schemes, including collateral-free soft loans, to traders, artisans, and smallholder farmers; or the School Feeding Programme, which seeks to boost school enrolment and support local farmers, the intention of these programmes was to address the welfare needs of vulnerable groups.

Unfortunately, this laudable programme has proved fruitless, largely owing to endemic corruption among those responsible for its implementation. The recent audit query lent credence to the widespread concern about sharp practices that have defined the programme.

This corruption has persisted. We recall that the former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, who is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), told Nigerians that more than N500 million was spent on feeding schoolchildren in two states and Abuja during the COVID-19 lockdown.

When the entire nation, including schools, was under total lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a minister claimed that her ministry spent N500m to feed schoolchildren, despite there being no evidence that the children received the food at their parents’ homes.

The allegation of corruption that dominated the conditional cash transfer and other components of the social investment programmes, especially before and during Farooq’s tenure as minister, persisted even under her successor, Dr Betta Edu, who was eventually suspended over allegations of depositing funds into private accounts.

If the recurring reports of corruption in the running of the social intervention programme are not disturbing, the continued silence, whether from the public, civil society or even the media, is alarming. The absence of public outrage following the audit query says a lot about Nigerians’ approach to corruption.

In a nation where over 63 million of its population are multi-dimensionally poor, the silence that greeted the audit query is disconcertingly worrisome.

We believe that the NCTO must provide detailed answers to the audit query, and all those responsible for corrupt practices in managing the fund must be held to account. The scandal cannot and should not be swept under the carpet.