“Termites have eaten up N17.158bn voucher” – NSITF MD tells Senate committee

The managing director of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Michael Akabogu has said that containers containing vouchers to justify an expenditure of N17.158 billion made by the agency in 2013 have been beaten by rain and eaten by termites, the Sun reports.

The claim by Akabogu followed an inquiry by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts for the NSITF to clarify the financial activities of the agency between 2013 and 2018, until date.

While both past and present management of the NSITF has come under scrutiny, the committee said it discovered the agency failed to produce relevant documents to justify its spending.

A 2018 audit report on the NSITF showed that N17.158 billion was the total amount of money transferred by the agency from its Skye and First Bank accounts into various untraceable accounts between January and December 2013.

The accounts, investigation by the Senate committee showed belonged to individuals and companies. It was also gathered that the office of the Auditor General in its 2018 report confirmed that different queries were made to the agency over alleged misappropriation by the management of NSITF.

Senate angered by submission of NSITF MD The Nation reports that to this the Senate committee headed by Mathew Urhoghide interrogated NSITF’s past and present managements on where monies totalling N17.158 billion were transferred between January and December 2013.

However, in response to the committee’s inquiry, Akabogu said the NSITF was not in possession of any of such documents. His words: “The container the said documents were kept by past management has not only been beating by rains over the years but even possibly being eaten up by termites.

“As directed by this committee, I told the past management officers on the need for them to help us out in answering this query with necessary documents which have not been made available for us.”

Further reacting, Urhoghide speaking on behalf of the committee directed the NSITF MD to re-appear before the lawmakers with all the requested documents on Thursday, September 22, 2022. Urhoghide said:

“This committee has given you people more than enough time to respond to queries slammed on NSITF in the 2018 Audit report by the office of Auditor General of the Federation.

“The queries are 50 in number ranging from one misappropriation to the other in billions of Naira . The one on N17.158billion multiple transfers carried out in 2013 has not been answered at all , not to talk of N5.5billion allegedly diverted into a commercial bank account without approval, N2.2billion unauthorized Investment without adequate records etc .

“These are completely unacceptable and the committee will make sure that these queries are sustained if required evidential documents on monies spent or misappropriated, are not provided.”

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