Senate uncovers signature forgery in N208m skill acquisition programme
By Tunde Opalana
The Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC) has uncovered alleged forgery of signatures in payment of N208 million to participants at zonal skills acquisition programme organised by the Federal Ministry of Labour.
The discovery was made during the ongoing investigation by the Senate Committee into the sum of N208 million drawn from Service Wide Vote (SWV) for the skill acquisition programme in all the six geopolitical zones in 2021.
It was revealed that N35 million each was allocated for each of the zones except the South East which was allotted N32 million to fund the programme but the Ministry of Labour failed to subject the expenditure to the scrutiny of Auditor General of the Federation Office.
Reviewing the lists of participants presented to the Senate Public Accounts Committee Chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide, the lawmakers observed that just a few persons signed for participants to collect their stipends in the six geo-political zones as the Ministry failed to make available the phone numbers of participants of the skill acquisition programme.
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The Chairman, Senator Urhoghide wondered how could the officials paid millions of naira via cash for programme instead of bank transfers.
The Committee chairman observed that the character of the signatures in participants list look alike and that not a single person used his name as a signature
The Committee members said the Ministry would have used E-payment to pay the participants of training programme
The committee noted that the signatures can’t stand forensic test if they are to be subjected to forensic test.
Urhoghide said “the money ought to have been paid straight into the accounts, you see one person signing for many people. There is clear violation of E-payment”
However, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Ms Kachollom S. Dajua and officials from the Ministry failed to give convincing explanation to the Committee in their argument that the due process was follow in paying the participants at the zonal skill acquisition training.
The Ministry collected N2.3 billion from Service Wide Vote from 2017 to 2021 out of which N1.146 billion was meant for capital while N1.162 billion was meant for recurrent.
