2 senators spend $40,000 as ‘miscellaneous

[naija4ever]

Federal auditors who scrutinised the financial records of the National Assembly for 2002 may have detected a fresh indication of financial indiscretion.
The 2002 Annual Audit Report, which has already been submitted to the National Assembly, catalogued instances of impropriety by some senators and members of the House of Representatives.

In one instance, N12.9 million was paid to some legislators and their aides as out-of-pocket allowances through six payment vouchers in respect of an overseas trip purportedly made by them.

The auditors noted that necessary documents, such as used air tickets, photocopies of relevant pages of their international passports and other vital information were not attached to the payment vouchers to authenticate payments.

In another instance, N11.4 million was paid to two unnamed legislators as another out-of-pocket allowance for a purported three-week course in the United States.

The auditors observed that in addition to the payment of full estacode and course fees of $3,000 paid to each of the two legislators, they collected extra $10, 000 each as contingency allowance.

Having considered the expenses as abuse of process, the auditors directed the Clerk of the National Assembly, Alhaji Ibrahim Salim, to recover the sum of N2.4 million from the two lawmakers.

About N3.4 million was similarly frittered away through a chief detail under the guise of purchasing bulletproof tyres and other car components, but auditors could not trace the items in the store ledger.

Similarly, the old tyres purported to have been replaced, were not returned to the store in accordance with the provisions of the financial regulations, while the addresses given on the purchase receipts were found to be non-existent.

Also, another senator was reported to have collected N1. 4 million as out-of-pocket expenses, in respect of an overseas trip purportedly undertaken by him between June 10 and 20, 2003.

However, audit investigations revealed that the used air tickets submitted by the senator had February 16, 2002 as date of purchase and was utilised between February 24 and 25, 2002; whereas the senator claimed to have made the trip in June 2003.

The auditors also directed the Clerk of the National Assembly to produce documents to back the payment of N1.4 million out-of-pocket expenses in favour of an unnamed officer of the National Assembly.

The amount represented the cost of three new engines for Peugeot 504 wagon vehicles meant to be used as replacement for three unspecified cars of similar model, but which the auditors could not trace in the fleet of the National Assembly.

In the year under review, the auditors found that in spite of the Federal Government’s huge financial commitments to the funding of constituency offices of the lawmakers, many of them did not maintain the facilities.

For instance, constituency offices belonging to 17 of the members were discovered to have been permanently locked up, while constituency offices of 50 other lawmakers could not be located.

Four of the legislators did not maintain constituency offices at all, while another set of four did not have the prescribed number of aides, as they employed one or two each instead of the six prescribed by the rules.

In April, some Senators under the aegis of ‘senators of integrity’ had moved against the President of the Senate, Chief Adolphus Wabara, alleging irregularities in handling the allocations to the senate.

The allegations said to be largely unsubstantiated heated up the Senate, as the anti-Wabara lawmakers numbering 86 at a point demanded his resignation from office.

Following the intervention of the Peoples Democratic Party leadership, which staved off Wabara’s removal from office, the President of the Senate apologised to his colleagues.

A committee to work on reforming the management of finance in the Senate was later put in place.

http://odili.net/news/source/2004/jun/15/404.html