A Federal Government agency under the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), has been engaging in extra-budgetary spending, The Nation has learnt.
As a result, the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has launched investigation into how the commission engaged in such expenditure to the tune of N1.19 billion in the 2018 and 2019 financial years.
A report by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (OAuGF) said the NIPC had a budget of N194 million in 2018, and N180.6 million in 2019, but spent N700 million and N871 million, respectively.
Committee Chairman Wole Oke asked the agency’s management to explain why it spent government funds without the National Assembly’s approval through appropriation.
The House is also investigating why the commission re-awarded 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 by the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee sighted by our reporter said “N180.6 million was budgeted for overhead cost in Year 2019, but NIPC ended up spending N871 million, excluding depreciation, without the approval of the National Assembly”.
It added: “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 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 the UPS to Digital Communication Konsult at the cost of N22.5 million in 2020, but repudiated the contract on the premise that the contractor allegedly 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 requested the Executive Secretary of the NIPC to explain why the commission was not implementing the provisions of the Pensions Reform Act, which stipulate 18 per cent contribution, while the agency was implementing 15 per cent, among others.
A close study of the 223-page document presented to the committee by the commission shows a line item suggesting that the commission may have spent its IGR for 2019 to service its recurrent and capital budget.
For example, the statement of comparison between budget and actual transaction as at December 31, 2019 shows, under Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), 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 members, 137 as senior workers with only 10 junior workers spent about N38.5 million on overseas and local training as well as N81.7 million on travels alone in 2019.