By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Federal Government saved a whopping sum of N500 billion by blocking leakages and wastages in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Federal Ministry of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Dikwa has disclosed.
Dr. Dikwa made this revelation on Tuesday when the Alumni of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Abuja Chapter, paid him a visit in his office.
He told the visiting team that most of the achievements wererecorded under his leadership at the Presidential Initiative forContinuous Audit (PICA), which he attributed to the experience gottenfrom NIPSS.
“If you recall, over the last four years, this administration has putin place a lot of policies on ground and I am part of the financialpolicies put in place at the Ministry of Finance.
“I headed most of the reforms at the Ministry of Finance for the past
four years. There are tangible results we have gotten over the years.
“One of the fundamental achievements was saving the government over N500billion from leakages and wastages under my leadership at PICA.
“If the initiative was not in place, this amount of money we aretalking about would have been spent by MDAs. It was because of this initiative put in place that we were able to save that moneyfrom treasury looters,” he said.
The primary focus of PICA is to put systems and frameworks in placeover finance and spending of government revenue. The goal is tomaximize the utilization of the resources through continuousassurance, so as to ensure that requirements for improved efficiency, effectiveness and accountability are met.
The Permanent Secretary said: “we have also put in place so many other measures like the Whistleblowing Policy. The Whistleblowing Policy was initiated under my Chairmanship in PICA. We were able to succeed not only from recoveries, but stopped people from doing the wrongthings as far as the government circle was concern.
“When we came up with the policy, an average of 11, 000 tips werereceived on a monthly basis, but now, we hardly receive 20 to 30 tips simply because people have reduced the wrong doing in government. Before funds are released to MDAs for specific purpose…the money would be diverted into other things, and nobody knows.
“The external auditors will not know, so we came in between theexternal and internal audit to ensure that the money that is beingreleased into MDAs are spent for that purpose, and we held all theAccount Officers accountable for every kobo released to them,” hesaid.
According to PICA records, in March, 2018 the Federal Government recovered over N144.89 billion from corrupt officials through the implementation of the Whistle-blowing Policy.
Dr. Dikwa noted that “another was Fiscal Sustainability Plan which Iheaded. A plan that was extended to states and local governmentsbecause 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 FiscalSustainability Plan.
“We gave 22 conditions to the states and local governments as an incentive for them to get a kind of support from the FederalGovernment, provided they are following these 22 conditions. One of these conditions was to ensure that they publish every expenditurethey had through their websites and other publications; theirallocations, what comes to the states monthly and budget process.
“And that they should also have continuous audit extended to all the agencies they have as well as the Whistleblowing Policy. The major thing is to ensure transparency and accountability in the states and local governments. This has made the states buoyant.
“Prior to this, about 20 states were unable to pay their salaries,hence the bailout funds, budget support facility from the FederalGovernment. However, now, most of the states can pay their salariesand meet their capital spending. I was the one who champion thesepolicies before I became a Permanent Secretary,” he said.
Earlier, the leader of the NIPSS delegation, Dr. Mobolaji Olowo said, the team decided to visit Dr. Dikwa who is a member of the Alumni to congratulate him on his appointment as a Permanent Secretary and his recent award of Nelson Mandela for Public Service.
“We are here to pay a courtesy call on our member to congratulate him for his appointment as a Permanent Secretary and recent award for Nelson Mandela for Public Service,” she said.
Dr. Olowo also presented an award on behalf of the Alumni to Dr. Dikwa in recognition of his excellent performance.
