Senate Summons IPPIS Officials Over N113m Service Wide Votes

Senate panel on Public Accounts has resolved to summon officials of Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) over missing N113 million from Service Wide Votes (SWV) from the Office of Accountant General of the Federation.

This is just as the Senate committee uncovered violation of procedures in disbursement of SWV to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). The committee is probing disbursement of N4.9 trillion SWV between 2017 and 2021.

Chaired by Sen. Matthew Urhoghide, the committee said it had been able to establish that the N113 million disbursed from the accountant general to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for the recurrent expenditure in May 2017 was neither requested nor received by the examination body.

However, records from the accountant’s office did not show that the N113 million was reversed to the Federation Account. Appearing before the Senate committee, the Director of Cash Management from the Ministry Finance, Aliyu Ahmed, who represented the Permanent Secretary, told the lawmakers that JAMB did not apply for the N113 million, but the request was made from the Ministry of Finance on its behalf in 2017, adding that the money was raised from SWV.

However, Urhoghide observed that there was no record from the accountant that the money was reversed to the Federation Account.