ICPC
ICPC Nab Managers
ICPC
ICPC Nab Managers over N68m School-Feeding
Fraud
The recently-launched collaboration between the National Social
Investment Office (NSIO) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and
Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to root out corruption in
the Social Investment Programmes (SIPs) has begun to yield fruits
as two persons involved with the programme in Kogi State are
currently under arrest by ICPC for alleged N68,097,053 fraud.
The suspects include Hon. Adoga Ibrahim and Khadijat Karibo.
While Ibrahim was appointed the State Focal Person in 2016 for
the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) for Kogi
State and left office in May 2019, Karibo is still serving as the
state’s Programme Manager.
A petition alleging that the erstwhile State Focal Person and
the Programme Manager had connived and diverted large sums of money
meant for payments to cooks in the national school feeding
programme in Kogi State was received by ICPC.
The petition alleged that the duo had perpetrated “unlawful and
unethical deductions” from the accounts of cooks by the use of
letters purportedly signed by them conveying their consent that “a
blanket and unspecified amount be moved to 10 different business
accounts from the cooks’ accounts for sundry aggregated commodity
supplies”.
The petition further alleged that the massive fraudulent actions
were pulled off by the officials acting in concert with some banks
in the state.
Preliminary findings from ICPC investigations indicate that for
the programme to aggregate food items, the request must come from a
state governor clearly stating the names and details of suppliers
to the National Coordinator of the NHGSFP for approval.
This approval was lacking in the case under investigation as
Hon. Adoga only submitted a request in September 2018 but could not
present evidence of an approval, hence money was paid directly by
the programme to the cooks’ accounts.
However, further findings indicate that the Focal Person and the
State Programme Manager, in violation of the rights of the cooks,
directed banks to place a lien on their accounts which were
complied with, and thereafter had a total sum of N40, 388,558.00
transferred from the accounts of 627 cooks to the accounts of 10
companies out of the money meant for January 2019 feeding programme
for 20 days.
Similarly, another N27, 708,495.00 was transferred from the
accounts of 850 cooks to 9 companies’ accounts out of April 2019
feeding programme for 10 days by the suspects.
Other acts of corruption discovered in the Kogi programme
include the fact that after cooks had signed the issuance voucher
for the release of foodstuffs, store-keepers would release lesser
quantities, and also that some foodstuff supplies for monies
deducted from cooks’ accounts were never made, neither were the
monies refunded nor accounted for.
The NSIO had approached ICPC for a collaboration to get rid of
corruption in the implementation of the Federal Government’s SIPs
namely: school feeding for pupils, cash transfers to very poor
people, enterprise and empowerment programme, and N-Power. The
recent launch of the collaboration featured the unveiling of a
dedicated toll-free hotline (0800-CALL-ICPC: 0800-2255-4272) for
reporting corruption in the programmes.
Signed: Mrs. Rasheedat A. Okoduwa, mni
Spokesperson for the Commission