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ICPC: Budget Office justifies role in duplicated projects in Federal budget

Mr. Ben Akabueze, Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation

*Ben Akabueze, Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, explains how the Office took certain measures to prevent wastage of the Nigerian Government’s funds over the reported duplication of projects

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Acknowledging that a Federal anti-corruption agency had earlier reported to the Office about the observations in the next year’s budget estimates, Mr. Ben Akabueze, Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, has said that funds were withheld for the said duplicated projects in 2021 Budget.

ConsumerConnect reports Mr. Akabueze, who disclosed this development Friday, December 2, 2021, in an interview on Channels TV monitored in Lagos, explained certain measures taken by the Budget Office to prevent wastage of the government’s funds.

According to Director-General, the Budget Office took the necessary measure after the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) uncovered some duplicated projects in a report at the time.

It is recalled that Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, Chairman of the ICPC, had disclosed that 257 projects amounting to N20.138billion were duplicated in the 2021 budget.

Prof. Owasanoye stated that the anti-graft agency Commission tracked 1,083 projects across the country.

According to him, the exercise however, could not be conducted in Borno and Zamfara states due to reported insecurity issues in the North-West states of the West .

Nonetheless, Akabueze noted: “The ICPC came up with a report which they sent to us about duplicated projects that they found in the budget.

“We did our own review (and) we found that 54 of those projects were not actually duplications but there were issues with project descriptions – project descriptions which made them look the same, but they were not the same.”

The Budget Office Chief also stated that “every project in the budget has a unique identifier and the ones which were found to indeed be duplicated, funding was withheld from such projects. “There were 185 from the list we received; 185 (projects) were found to be duplicated, 54 were not.”

It is the responsibility of the ICPC to take necessary actions against those involved in the duplication of projects in the country’s budget, said Akabueze.

According to him, the best the Budget Office of the Federation could do was to withhold the release of funds for such a purpose to help Nigeria to save its resources.

The Director-General of the Budget Office further stated: “We have our own job description; we have the limit of our own authority.

“When it (a duplicated project) is discovered, the most – on our own part – that we can do is withhold release of funds to those specific projects.

“The ICPC has already reported. They have investigative powers, so they actually pull in the people involved to investigate whether these are willful actions to defraud the government or whether they are erroneous.

“They are the ones with the authority to do so, we don’t (have such authority).”

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