The House of Representatives is to probe what appeared to be an incidence of fraud in the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund as staff who were supposed to have benefited from a training sponsored by the fund claim they never participated in such training.
The House is to investigate why the fund management should spend about N2.3 billion on staff training without the approval of the Board or the supervising Ministry.
The House is also to investigate claims by the Management of the agency that it has spent billions of naira in settling debts to contractors without providing the board or the supervising ministry details of such payment.
The decision to probe the fund arose as a result of a motion sponsored by Hon. Francis Ejiroghene Waive (PDP, Delta) on the need to investigate the activities of the NSITF.
Hon Waive drew the attention of the House to a media report alleging a fraud of N2.3 billion against the Management of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) which he said was carried out without the authorization of the Board of the Fund or approval of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment as the transaction exceeded the spending threshold of the Management.
He said the report indicated that the Management allegedly awarded multi-million naira contracts for the construction of office complexes of the Fund in twelve states of the Federation, in addition to approving millions of naira as duty tour allowances for trips, in contravention of a recent directive from the Presidency banning such trips in order to reduce wastage.
He said further that at the end of August 2019, the sum of N2, 294,161,925 had allegedly been spent on staff trainings which were mostly not approved by the Board or the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
He disclosed that many of the staff of the Fund who were supposed to have attended such training claimed that they never attended any training, adding that there were lot of infractions in the process
He said the claim by the Management that it had spent billions of naira in settling outstanding debts to contractors without giving details of such debts to the Board or the Ministry raises suspicions about the genuineness of the claimed indebtedness and payments.
He recalled that the Fund had been embroiled in similar scams in the past, including the alleged diversion of N62 billion by the immediate past Chairman of the Board, who is currently undergoing trial
He said in view of the disturbing revelations, there was an urgent need to investigate the allegations in order to reposition the Fund to deliver on its mandate and also help in stamping out corrupt practices in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government.
The House, however, mandated it’s the Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity to investigate the activities of the Fund, especially in relation to the expenditure of N2.3 billion by the Management of the Fund and report back in four (4) weeks for further legislative action.
Source: The Nation
