ABUJA — House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has queried the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for paying part of the N9 billion it received as special intervention fund by the federal government for COVID-19 response into the personal accounts of some of its officials.
The chairman of the committee, Hon Busayo Oluwole Oke stated this when the director-general of the agency, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, appeared before the committee, observed that from the agency’s submissions, part of the money was paid into the private accounts of some staff members of the agency.
“In 2020 the sum of N3.955 million was paid to one Kemisalo Odimayo for the establishment of an additional sample collection space and the sum of N792, 000 paid to one Musa Sokodabo for the construction of treatment of isolation and treatment centres in some states,” he said.
Defending a query, the procurement officer of the agency, Dania Augustus, said money was usually paid to the account of any staff who raised a memo for any expenditure.
He also said it was expedient to pay into the private accounts at the time due the urgency of the COVID-19 response.
“Musa is a desk officer. That is to say he raised memos on issues and treats files and all that. What usually happens is that whoever raises a memo for an activity, when payment is to be made so that accounts can track record of payment, the initiator of that memo, his name is usually used,” he said.
The lawmakers were not convinced with the explanation, saying the gesture was a violation of procurement laws and demanded for all relevant records on how the funds were expended at the next meeting.
The director-general of the agency, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, had earlier told the committee to give account of the agency’s spending, said the NCDC between March and December 2020 received N620 million.
He gave the breakdown of the amount as according to him, from March 2020 to March 2021 it received N5 billion while N3.49billion was received from January 2021 to September 2021 from the federal government.
Adetifa said the N9 billion was used for the renovation and construction work of infectious diseases, treatment centres and isolation centres across Abuja and some states; the construction for treatment of isolation and treatment centres; procurement of medical and laboratory equipment; logistics and supply chain; recruitment of ad-hoc staff and human resource support; procurement of lab supplies; response operations at national and state emergency operations centres; deployment of rapid response teams for outbreak investigation and response; training of healthcare workers on case management and surveillance; media and risk communications; and tax among others.
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