The Federal Ministries and Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have padded the 2021 and 2022 budgets with duplicated projects worth over N400 billion, according to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
The anti-graft agency disclosed on Thursday that projects’ duplication worth N100 billion were also inserted into the N17.12 trillion 2022 budget by some MDAs.
The ICPC further disclosed that a whopping N49.9 billion was tracked as salaries paid to ghost workers between January and June this year.
The Chairman of the anti-corruption agency, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, made the revelations during an interface with the Senate Committee on Finance.
The ICPC boss said the N300 billion duplicated projects in the 2021 budget and the N100 billion in the 2022 budgets were tracked through a thorough scrutinisation carried out on the approved projects for the various MDAs.
Owasanoye said, “N300 billion would have been wasted by the federal government on duplicated projects inserted into the 2021 budget and another N100 billion for same purpose in the current fiscal year if not tracked and intercepted by the ICPC.
“The same preemptive move saved the country from spending N49.9 billion for salaries of ghost workers put on fictitious payroll by some fraudulent officers in the various MDAs between January and June this year.
“The names of the MDAs involved in projects duplications running into intercepted billions of Naira and fictitious payrolls are available and will be forwarded to the (Senate Finance) Committee.
“The good thing about the preemptive moves made by us is that monies for the fraudulent acts were prevented from being released to the affected MDAs and it is gratifying that the Finance Ministry and Accountant General Office cooperated with us,” he said.
He advised relevant committees of the National Assembly to be on the lookout for such projects duplication in the proposed N19.76 trillion 2023 budget.