By Gift Olivia Samuel, The Sight News
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday, May 16, 2022, arrested the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris in Kano, over N80 billion fraud, approximately $193 million.
Operatives of the EFCC arrested the serving Accountant General of the Federation, in connection with the diversion of funds and money laundering activities to the tune of N80 billion.
“The Commission’s verified intelligence showed that the AGF raked off the funds through bogus consultancies and other illegal activities using proxies, family members and close associates”, the EFCC Spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren disclosed in a statement.
The Sight News gathered that the funds were laundered through real estate investments in Kano and Abuja, and Mr. Idris was arrested after failing to honour invitations by the EFCC to respond to issues connected to the fraudulent acts.
President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Idris, who was formerly the Director of Finance and Accounts, Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, as AGF on June 25, 2015. The position became vacant at the time after the former Accountant General, Jonah Otunla, left office on June 12, 2015.
Idris, who is a native of Kano State, was born on November 25, 1960, and was reappointed by President Buhari for a second four-year term in June 2019, amid criticisms from labour groups, who said the accountant-general should retire after turning 60.
Duties of the Accountant General of the Federation
The Accountant General of the Federation is the head of the Federal government accounting services and Treasury, and has the responsibility of providing adequate accounting and controls in the Ministries, Extra-Ministerial Offices and other arms of government.
The Accountant General of the Federation has the following duties: He serves as the Chief Accounting Officer of the receipts and payments of the government of federation; Supervises the accounts of federal ministries and Extra-ministerial offices and other arms of government; Collates, presents and publishes statutory financial statements of the Federal Government and any other statements of account required by the minister of finance; Manages federal government investments; Maintains and operates the accounts of the consolidated revenue fund, development fund, contingencies fund and other public funds and provides cash backing for the operations of the federal government.
Maintain and operate the Federation account; Establishes and supervises Federal Pay Offices in each state capital of the Federation; Conducts routine and in-depth inspection of the books of accounts of federal ministries and departments to ensure compliance with rules, regulations, policies, decisions and maintenance of accounting codes and internal audit guides; Approves and ensure compliance with accounting codes, audit and store verification manuals; Investigates cases of fraud, loss of fund, asset and store items and other financial malpractices in ministries/Extra-Ministerial departments and other arms of Government.
Others are; Provides financial regulations and issues treasury circulars to federal ministries and ministerial departments to ensure that there are adequate systems in the public offices for the control of the collection and disbursement of public funds and for the coordination of the accounting systems. These roles show how sensitive the office of the Accountant General of the Federation is to the country.
Impact of Money Laundering on Nigeria’s Economy.
Nigeria has continued to battle issues such as high rate of unemployment, underemployment, high number of out-of-school children, high cost of living as well as extreme poverty which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the rising inflation rate which stood at 16.82% as at April 2022 among other economic challenges.
A 2022 World Bank Poverty Assessment report on Nigeria disclosed that the number of poor persons in the country will rise to 95.1 million in 2022. The number of poor people was 89.0 million in 2020 and would be 95.1 million in 2022, and would mean that 6.1 million more persons would have fallen beneath the poverty line between 2020 and 2022, a 6.7% increase.
The report also revealed that trust in the government and other institutions in Nigeria is low, even compared to other countries in Africa; this is a major constraint on pro-poor policy reforms. The share of Nigerians reporting that they had no trust or “just a little trust” in the president, parliament, local government, the police, and the courts was significantly higher in Nigeria than for all the other countries included in the Afrobarometer survey—33 countries across the African continent.
The COVID-19 crisis could have weakened public trust yet further, as outcomes for human capital, livelihoods, and welfare have worsened for many Nigerian households. It added that in part, this lack of trust stems from a weak social contract, meaning the relationship between people and the state: Nigerians care most about health and education, but these receive far less emphasis from the government.
Furthermore, money laundering has aggravated the poverty rate, as sectors such as education and healthcare which are very critical to the people are left to deteriorate due to diversion of money that would have served these needs.
A look at Nigeria’s health budget for 2022 was put at N724 billion, and this was allocated for healthcare across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. Meanwhile, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the agency in charge of the Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) nationwide,which are supposed to cater to the basic health needs of most Nigerians got N24 billion in the approved budget.
Also, the Chief of UNICEF Field Office in Kano, Rahama Farah recently disclosed that “Currently in Nigeria there are 18.5 million out of school children, 60 percent of these out of school children are girls – that is over 10 million girls are out of school. Most importantly, you will need to know that the majority of these out of school children are actually from northern Nigeria”.
With these, one is left to only imagine the impact N80 billion would have had in sending some of these out-of-school children back to the classrooms to learn rather than roam the streets, and also in equipping some of the Primary Healthcare Centres to meet the basic health needs of Nigerians, especially in the rural areas, so as to reduce the mortality rate drastically.
