The Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), a Federal Government agency under the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has been engaging in extra budgetary spending, The Nation has learnt.
As a result, the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has commenced investigation into how the Commission engaged in extra budgetary expenditure to the tune of N1.19 billion in the 2018 and 2019 financial years.
Accordingly to a report from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, the NIPC had a budget of N194 million in 2018, and NN180.6 million in 2019, but spent N700 million and N871 million respectively.
Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Whole Oke asked the management of the company to provide full explanation on why the agency would spend government money at their disposal without the approval of the National Assembly in firm of appropriation.
The House is also investigating why the Commission would re-award a contract for the supply and installation of 50 units of complete computers sets and UPS at the cost of N28.9 million when an upward review of the same contract demanded by the original contractor was N27.6 million.
A brief from the Public Accounts Committee sighted by our reporter said “N180.6 million was budgeted for overhead cost in the year 2019, but NIPC ended up spending N871 million excluding depreciation without the approval of the National Assembly.
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“There was extra budgetary spending on overhead in the year 2018 without supplementary approval from the National Assembly. N194 million appropriated but NIPC spent over N700 million.”
The House however asked the NIPC to provide the National Assembly’s approval for extra budgetary spending of N690 million.
The committee alleged that the contract for the supply and installation of 50 units of complete computer sets and UPS to Digital Communication Konsult at the cost of N22.5 million in 2020, but repudiated the contract on account that the contractor requested for upward review to N27.6 million citing unstable exchange rate as an excuse, but the contract was later re-awarded to Dotmac Technologies Limited at the cost of N28.9 million.
The House also want the Executive Secretary of the NIPC to explain why the Commission is not implementing the provisions of the Pensions Reform Act which stipulate 18 percent contribution, while the agency is implementing 15 percent.
A close study of the 223 paged document presented to the Committee by the Commission shows a line item suggesting that the Commission may have spent its internally generated revenue for 2019 to service its recurrent and capital budget.
For example, the statement of comparism between budget and actual transaction as at 31st December, 2019 shows under Internally Generated Revenue, a recurrent item which states that there was a personnel cost budget of N500 million and actual of N349,750,700.50, overhead budget of N966 million and actual of N749,811,184.32 as well as capital budget of N149 million and actual of N91,123,865.07.
It was also discovered that the NIPC with a staff strength of about 210 with 63 of them being management staff, 137 as senior staff with only 10 junior staff spent about N38.5 million on overseas and local training and a whipping N81.7 million on travels alone in 2019.