The federal government of Nigeria recently stated that it has uncovered about 54,000 fraudulent payroll fraud in its Integrated Personnel And Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
This was disclosed by the National security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd) at the National policy dialogue on corruption and security, organized by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
The IPPIS is a uniform payroll payment system that was introduced in Nigeria in 2006, designed for the civil service and managed by the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, to ensure centralized payment of salaries, ease convenient staff remuneration payment with minimal wastage, updating, and retrieval of personnel records for administrative and pension processing, aid manpower planning and budgeting, among others.
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While speaking on the 54,000 payroll fraud uncovered, Gen. Monguno attributed the discovery to the expansion of the coverage of IPPIS against stiff opposition from some quarters in the country, for example, the Academic Staff Union Of Universities(ASUU).
He further revealed that corruption had hindered the government’s ability to offer a better life for its citizens, and this has negatively affected the country.
Monguno noted that despite stiff opposition to the system, the Buhari-led administration will not change its judgments on the use of IPPIS, adding that the Treasury Single Account saves N4 billion per month, which he alleged could have been stolen by corrupt individuals.
In his words;
”For instance, the dogged implementation of the Treasure Single Account in which more than 90% of all Ministries Departments and Agencies of the Federal government has resulted in the consolidation of more than 17,000 bank accounts previously spread across deposit money banks in the country, leading to monthly savings of about N4bn in bank charges.
”Furthermore, the expansion of coverage of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System against stiff opposition from some quarters and deployment of the Bank Verification Number to validate federal government payroll on the IPPIS platform has led to the detection of almost 54,000 fraudulent payroll entries.
“The whistleblower policy has also facilitated the cleansing of IPPIS compliance on TSA and saving of huge sums of money.
“Meanwhile, the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption in the discharge of its mandate was also the system anti-corruption agency to obtain forfeiture of assets suspected to have been fraudulently acquired from the state treasury before the culprits are prosecuted.”
He further disclosed that the Buhari-led administration is still committed to eliminating corruption in both the public and private sectors and that its anti-corruption campaign is still effective.
See what he said;
”At this juncture, permit me to emphatically state that successive governments in Nigeria have over the years risen to the occasion through emplacements of various measures and policies as well as the establishment of statutory institutions such as the ICPC and EFCC to combat this problem.
”The anti-corruption stance of the present administration of President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) is firmly anchored on his fore-mentioned assertion and it is vigorously being pursued across all spheres of governance including the private sector with appreciable outcomes”.