The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has stated that no money is missing, or was stolen under his watch, between September and December 2019,
Fashola denied reports that he supervised the illegal payments of N4.6 billion into private accounts when he served as Minister of Power, Works and Housing.
had stated that the Ministry paid over N4.6 billion into personal accounts of Directors and staff in four months, stressing that, this was in clear violation of the extant laws.
The report claimed that between September and December 2019, N4.6 billion was illegally paid into the private accounts of some Directors and employees of the then Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.
However, in reaction to the report, the Minister stated that: “In all, no money was stolen, or is missing. There is no smoking gun to criminalise Fashola.”
In his reaction, which he personally signed on Monday, Fashola explained that the Federal Government in 2007, initiated a payment platform called the Integrated Personnel Payment and Information System, IPPIS.
He noted that the current administration has been engaging all sectors of government to fully migrate to the IPPIS platform.
His words: “What has happened is that not all government Officials who, from time to time, needed to be paid for approved expenses were registered on the platform.
“In order to ensure that government work was not hampered, the Directors of Fiance and Accounts sought and obtained approval of the Accountant-General to pay these monies through the accounts of an approved few who were on the platform.
“Those so approved then collect the money and disburse to the beneficiaries who sign receipts all of which are retired and available for verification as approved by the Accountant-General.”
The Minister noted that the Accountant-General had recently issued new guidelines to deal with this process.
This, he said, was “because not all public officials had fully enrolled on the IPPIS and the DFAs had the mandate to comply and not Fashola”.
The Minister then stated that it is wrong to think that a Public Officer would take such money on a consistent and repeated basis, with impunity.
