Senate Orders NDLEA To Refund N356m Unapproved Spending

The Chairman, Senate Public Affairs Committee, Matthew Urhoghide, has ordered the management of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to refund to the country treasury the sum of N356 million it spent without necessary approvals.

The panel said the NDLEA officials failed to justify the N365million being their total expenditure when they appeared before the Senate panel.

The committee had invited the NDLEA official over an alleged unapproved spending and failure to account for advances granted to some of its officials.

The Senate panel is currently scrutinising the 2016 Auditor-General’s report which contains the alleged financial infractions against the NDLEA.

The chairman of the Senate panel, at its hearing last Wednesday, sustained the Auditor-General’s queries which alleged that the anti-drug agency spent N43million on the revocation and purchase of operational vehicles without approval.

The NDLEA was also accused of failure to refund N42million cash advances.

It was also found guilty of spending N12million on the renovation of the Jigawa State office without approval.

The AuGF report also indicted the NDLEA of purchasing operational vehicles worth N90million without approval from the Ministerial Tender Board.

The panel, therefore, gave the NDLEA 24 hours to justify spending of N169million as security votes.

The 24-hour ultimatum expired yesterday without the agency being able to defend the allegations.

The panel described as unacceptable the explanations given by the representative of the Director-General of NDLEA, Abdullahi Shittu, regarding the issues bothering on the alleged financial infractions against the agency.

Urhoghide, therefore, ordered the NDLEA to refund the money spent without appropriations.

The senator said: “We will sustain the query of the Auditor-General’s report against your agencies and the money spent illegally should be refunded.”

The AuGF query read in part: “A sum of N169,336,264.36 was spent on security votes in 2015.

“Further examination of the agency’s budget for that year revealed that there was no appropriation for security vote by the National Assembly.

“The Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA should produce the authority for this expenditure or recover the sum of N169,336,264.36 and forward relevant details for verification.

“Contract for the supply of seven operational vehicles for the sum of N90,772,500 was awarded without approval from the Ministerial Tender Board.

“This contravened Section 16(2) of the Procurement Act of 2007.”

The Act states that: “No fund shall be disbursed from the Treasury or Federation Account or bank account of the procuring entity for any procurement falling above the set thresholds unless the cheque or other form of request for payments is accompanied by ‘No objection Certificate’ to an award of contract duly signed by the Bureau.”