The Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) was unable to hire staff in 2018 despite the Parliament having appropriated funds for that purpose, according to the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, PAC.
The agency was charged by the Committee with lying to the government and the parliament and withholding funds from other agencies that could have been used for other purposes.
The Agency received N1.7 billion as personnel costs in 2018 but only used N1.4 billion, returning the remaining N310 million to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, according to the Audit query brought against the Agency by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, which is currently before the Committee chaired by Hon. Busayo Oluwole Oke (PDP-Osun).
The committee which commenced the probe Friday however observed that despite not recruiting the required staff, the agency got the same amount of N1.7 billion as personnel cost in 2019, with the amount spent going up to about N1.6 billion.
According to the query, “in 2020, the agency’s allocation for personnel cost went up to N1.8 billion, reducing to N1.6 billion in 2021, going up again to N1.9 billion in 2022 even when the workers have not been employed”.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Wole Oke declared that something was wrong in the agency, wondering why the personnel cost kept rising and falling even when new staff have not been employed.
However, a senior officer of the agency, Abdullah Abubakar who represented the Executive Secretary, Dr. Chioma Ejikeme explained that the agency budgeted N1.7 billion for personnel cost in 2018 because it initially planned to employ new staff, adding that the balance of N310 million was returned to the treasury.
He claimed that "IPPIS handles our personnel. We did not hire the staff that we needed to hire, so the remaining funds from the budget were returned to the CRF. Even though we still require those workers, the Head of Service has not yet granted us a hiring waiver.
He clarified that the reason expenses went up even though no new employees were hired was because existing employees were promoted and their salaries had to be raised to reflect their new rank.
However, the Committee members requested the NEEDS assessment conducted by the Federal Character Commission and the agency's Head of Service, which led to their budgetary request since 2017.
The Head of Service and the Federal Character Commission must have conducted a necessary evaluation of your agency prior to your request for funding to hire, according to the Chairman of the Committee. We gave it to you, but you didn't do anything with it. Most agencies have complained about a lack of funding, but in this case, you received the money you requested but did not use it. Through the President, you lied to the parliament and prohibited other agencies from using the funds. Therefore, we must seed the evaluation of your agency that led to the parliament giving you this funding: "By failing to use this funding for what it was intended for, you have violated the appropriation act. But we will give you a right of fair hearing to explain to us the reason (s) for your action”
Meanwhile, the Committee has also decided to conduct the investigation into an alleged indebtedness by port operators to the Nigeria Ports Authority amounting to over 800 million dollars in Lagos.
Committee Chairman, Wole Oke said since the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) needed to be present alongside the port operators, the committee would take to investigation closer to them.
According to him, “the parliament will move the hearing to Lagos where all parties will meet with us at Marriott Hotel in Ikeja between December 8 and 9. We hope to resolve this issue once and for all. 800 million dollars is not small money”.