EXCLUSIVE: FCT Minister Nyesom Wike Fools Nigerians And Sets Up His Own Audit Who Cleared His N7.66 Billion Poverty Programme Without One Query

SecretsReporters inspection of the audited report of the FCT NG-CARES financial statement for January to December 2024 shows an audit that found nothing wrong with the programme it examined. The report was produced by the Office of the Director of Audit, FCT, an internal audit office of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, and it states that proper books of account were maintained, that the funds were used for the intended purposes, and that the financial management of the programme was satisfactory, robust and effective. Against total funds of N8,156,889,724.95, the report raises no query, records no infraction and enters no adverse finding of any kind.

NG-CARES, the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus programme, is a World Bank operation run on an IDA credit, with a US$15 million allocation for the Federal Capital Territory. Its own statement of purpose is to expand access to livelihood support and food security services and to give grants to poor and vulnerable households and firms. In the territory it ran through five delivery platforms: the Community and Social Development Project, FADAMA, the Cash Transfer Unit, the Abuja Enterprise Agency and the FCT CARES Coordinating Unit. The administration that ran the programme and the administration that audited it are the same administration, headed throughout 2024 by Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.

Of everything the FCT programme spent in the year, N731,109,766.92 went out as salaries and allowances to programme staff, 9.54 percent of all expenditure under a programme created to put cash, food support and grants in the hands of poor and vulnerable people.

The Abuja Enterprise Agency, the platform charged with grants and support to small businesses, received N869,738,238.98 in the year and spent the whole of it, closing its account at exactly N0.00. Its salary bill stands in the report at exactly N215,000,000.00, which is 24.7 percent of everything the agency received, and it is the only salary figure in the entire report written in a round number without kobo, where every other platform's salary figure is stated to the last kobo. The agency's acting managing director during the year was Chudi Ugwuada-Ezirigwe.

The same audited pages show N493,491,526.18 of the year's funds unspent at 31 December 2024, in what was the closing year of the programme's first phase. The Community and Social Development Project alone held N242,845,974.59 of the unspent money. The Cash Transfer Unit, the platform whose work is paying cash directly to beneficiaries, ended the year still holding N178,221,510.18.

The World Bank supplied N7,956,962,598.05 of the money the FCT programme took in, 97.5 percent of the whole. The Federal Capital Territory Administration's own contribution was N49,960,000.00, which is 0.61 percent. The auditors' only remark on the territory's side of the bargain is that government contributions have been irregular, while World Bank funding has been consistent.

The accounts also carry N101,264,616.42 booked as other income under the head of reversed funds. Of that sum, N100,764,616.42, which is 99.5 percent of it, sits at the Community and Social Development Project. The report's note describes the money only as reversed income from the Project and from FADAMA, and nothing anywhere in the report states what was reversed, who reversed it, or why it was reversed.

The only criticisms the auditors entered anywhere in the report are that the finance and audit staff of the administration have not received the financial management training they need, that the Fixed Asset Register is kept in loose files rather than in a hardcover book, and that the Cash Advance Register is kept in loose files as well. No company, no contractor and no beneficiary is named anywhere in the document.

The report carries no date of signature on any of its pages, and its pages do not agree with each other on what the programme spent, printing total expenditure as N7,663,398,198.77 in the summary and as N7,663,398,198.82 in the notes and schedules.

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