Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN) has disclosed that credible intelligence in its possession has revealed that the federal, state and local governments are cumulatively losing N1.4 trillion annually to contract scams, procurement fraud, fraudulent court judgements and other related frauds.
The president and chairman of the institute’s governing council, Dr Iliyasu Gashinbaki, who stated this at the weekend during this year’s International Fraud Awareness Week at its Forensic House in Abuja, warned that the current annual losses are expected to rise to N3 trillion by 2025 if nothing is done to remedy the situation.
He said, “Bloomberg revealed that in 2022 alone, Nigeria made a settlement payment of $496 million (N418.625 billion at today’s exchange rate of N844 to one US dollar at the Import & Export-I &E- window) to Global Steel Holdings Ltd (GSHL), a company with headquarters in United Arab Emirates whose concession to Ajaokuta Steel Company was earlier revoked as it was accused of asset stripping by the federal government.”
Gashinbaki called on the three tiers of governments to review their procurement laws to include forensic experts so as to plug the gaping holes in the process.
He said there was the need to conduct a forensic review to look at the way contracts are awarded by the government and the digitization of the process.
“The traditional way of vetting contracts by looking at the clauses is no longer tenable as it is susceptible to fraud and with forensic reviews, experts will be looking at the background of parties in the contracts; the terms and conditions of each clause and their implications at the present time and in the future.
This way, all the suspicious contracts can be clearly seen by the government. This will throw up all issues in the contracts that need to be renegotiated, and it will also throw up all issues that need to be expunged,” he stated.
He said if the contract is fraudulent, the government can go to court and have the contracts nullified, adding that that is why forensics review is important as it will arm the government to either call parties to renegotiate the contracts or go to court and have the contracts reviewed or nullified.
The president disclosed further that the Institute with a pool of forensic experts is ready to partner with government at all levels to achieve this and said once the procurement process is digitized, it will appear more accountable and transparent.
He said the Institute is willing to collaborate with the government with “an end-to-end digitization of the contract management process.”
