IPPIS: Health, Tertiary Institutions ‘Worst Culprits’ As FG Saves N18bn

The Federal Government has intensified the fight against
corruption through the enforcement of the Integrated Personnel
Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

This comes as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other
Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it has saved the government
over N18 billion through the system.

“We’ve saved about N18 billion right now that we told the
government, in the words of my chairman, ‘restrain the money,” said
ICPC spokesperson, Mrs Rasheedat Okoduwa.

Okoduwa, the Director of Public Enlightenment at the anti-graft
agency, made the disclosure on Tuesday during her appearance on
Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.

She noted that some Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs)
that were not on IPPIS have been made to join the scheme as a
result of the development.

The ICPC spokesperson stressed, “It is even more than N18
billion right now. The Ministry of Finance is capturing them now on
IPPIS but their personnel expenditure alone, we’ve restrained over
N18 billion.”

She recalled that the agency launched its System Study Review at
the national summit on ‘Diminishing Corruption in the Public
Service’ which held in Abuja on November 19.

The report, she noted, identified some health and education
institutions as the worst culprits in padding budgets allocated to
payment of personnel’s salaries.

Okoduwa highlighted a situation where the Federal Medical Centre
(FMC), Bayelsa had over N900 million as surplus in its salary
purse.

She explained that the case was flagged while the management
team of the centre was summoned to clarify the rationale behind the
surplus uncovered.

The Worst Culprits
The ICPC official revealed that the team gave the excuse that the
personnel cost was inflated in order to execute projects which the
government could not approve for the FMC.

She said, “Within January to July, you are still having balances
on your salaries, how come? Because ordinarily, you should have
exhausted your salary if you paid everybody and nobody complained
you didn’t pay them.

“How come all of a sudden you are having N30 million, N50
million left on your salary may be for a particular MDA? It shows
you had padded your nominal roll ab initio and you have paid those
who are actually on the ground.”

“For example, they’ve been drawing down on such monies and using
them for travels when they are not supposed to use that.

“ICPC, in doing that, brought out the report that health
institutions, universities… they are the worst culprits,” the
stated.

Okoduwa stressed that the activities and functions of the ICPC
and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were not
just backed by policies but rooted in law.

According to her, the system study conducted by ICPC is to
follow up with institutions that fall in the partially-compliant
and non-compliant categories to ensure there are noticeable
changes.

The ICPC spokesperson said where such changes were not seen, the
agency would impose a new system on erring individuals and agencies
before the enforcement stage and make it criminal.

She added that the study has had effects on the MDAs as their
heads and some ministers in other cases approached the ICPC on how
to correct their wrongs.