The Federal Government Wednesday said its financial policies have resulted in saving of over N500 billion which would have been looted from Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Federal Ministry of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Dikwa, said the government was able to make this huge savings by plugging leakages and wastages in government.

He said: “If the initiative was not in place, this amount of money we are talking about would have been spent by MDAs. It was because of this initiative that was put in place that we were able to save that money from treasury looters. “When we came up with the policy, an average of 11,000 tips were received on a monthly basis, but now, we hardly receive 20 to 30 tips simply because people have reduced wrong doing in government.”

Dr. Dikwa spoke when he received in audience in his office, the Alumni of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Abuja Chapter.

He told the visitors that most of the achievements were recorded under his leadership at the Presidential Initiative for Continuous Audit (PICA), which he attributed to the experience he got from NIPSS.

He said: “Over the last four years, this administration has put in place a lot of policies on ground especially the financial policies put in place at the Ministry of Finance. There are tangible results we got over the years. One of the fundamental achievements was saving by the government of over N500billion from leakages and wastages under PICA.

“The primary focus of PICA is to put systems and frameworks in place over finance and spending of government revenue. The goal is to maximize the utilisation of the resources through continuous assurance, so as to ensure that requirements for improved efficiency, effectiveness and accountability are met.

“PICA has also put in place many measures such as the Whistle-blowing Policy. We were able to make not only recoveries, but stopped people from doing the wrong things as far as the government circle was concerned.”

According to him, in the past, when funds are released to MDAs for specific purposes, the funds were usually diverted into other things arbitrarily. “The external auditors will not know, so we came in between the external and internal audit to ensure that the money that is being released into MDAs are spent for that purpose, and we held all the Account Officers accountable for every kobo released to them,” he said.

He said the Federal Government recovered over N144.89 billion in March last year from corrupt officials through the implementation of the Whistle-blowing Policy.

Dr. Dikwa said: “Another initiative was the Fiscal Sustainability Plan. A plan that was extended to states and local governments because there was this cry from the states and local governments that all our policies were concentrated at the federal level and not being extended to states and local governments, so we came up with Fiscal Sustainability Plan.

“We gave 22 conditions to the states and local governments as an incentive for them to get a kind of support from the Federal Government, provided they follow these 22 conditions. One of these conditions was to ensure that they publish every expenditure they had through their websites and other publications; their allocations, what comes to the states monthly and budget process.”

ShenTeh:
While this may be true, it has zero positive effect on the quality of live of Nigerians.

aolawale025:
Someone will just wake up,pull a figure from the air and ascribe it to "looters". How about the looting ongoing right now?

Centcanada:
What is the next thing those money will be used for? Just asking to avoid re-looting. Simple.

PrinceKevin01:
All this money here and there. Yet nothing is working in this country. What a country?

Anyway, i will Build a Professional Logo for your Product or Company For 1k. Offer valid today only. See my info below to Chat me up on WhatsApp

ShenTeh:
While this may be true, it has zero positive effect on the quality of live of Nigerians.

Paroh:
Believe this at your own risk.


See my signature

iykecicero:


It’s not true at all. How did they save the money and what impact have the savings done. Buhari likes to reason from his anus. Yesterday he talked about securing SW highways with CCTV. What an oaf we have as a president.

bonnyhope:
where is the money

Idibia18:
Muhammadu Buhari is no man of integrity.

He is just like any Nigerian.

Perhaps even worse.

I think we Nigerians tend to mistake simplicity and unsophistication for integrity.

PMB is unsophisticated, reason he couldn’t increase his cow yield despite his advantage of ranching.

Reason he hasn’t written even a book.

That doesn’t mean he has integrity.

Carry out the integrity test at a low intelligence scale, and he fails spectacularly.

This WAEC is but one of many.

The CJN and his initial denial is another.

You say he is frugal.

Just wait until his regime is over.

We will uncover his own “Dasuki” and “Diezianni” soon enough if we care to be sincere to ourselves.