12bn NAPEP fraud #nigeria

The Senate‏ ‏uncovered N10
billion belonging to the National Poverty
Eradication Programme, NAPEP, that got trapped
in some failed financial institutions in the country,
while N150 million meant for the supply of spare-
parts for the tricycles, otherwise known as Keke
NAPEP, was carted away by a contractor.
The Senate made the discovery while grilling the
Co-ordinator of NAPEP, Alhaji Murktar Tefawa
Belawa over N12 billion poverty reduction fund.
The agency claimed it lacked the structural
framework to possibly recover the missing funds
and that it had been unable to recover the money
because some of the banks had ceased to exist.
The Senator Ahmed Lawan-led Committee on
Public Account also discovered how the agency
paid additional N171 million as Customs duties for
the spare-parts that were not supplied and
another N605 million carted away by some Keke
NAPEP operators on the umbrella of Keke Riders
Association of Nigeria, KRAN.
The agency was alleged to have also paid another
N1.4 billion for projects that were not verified by
the Auditor General of the Federation.
Representatives of the AGF at the session, told the
panel that some of the contracts, which the
agency had paid for were yet to be verified.
National Coordinator, NAPEP, Alhaji Tefawa
Belawa, told the committee that beneficiaries of
the intervention fund failed to remit another N700
million revenue and that the agency had since
written the Economic and Financial Crime
Commission, EFCC, on how Auto Ban Limited
had disappeared with the said N150 million paid
for the supply of spare-parts.