Provide details of N173bn payments, HEDA tells AGF

Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) has asked the Accountant General of the Federation to provide details of payments a N173 billion from the office of the accountant-general of the federation.

In a letter jointly written with Dataphyte, a data advocacy platform, HEDA said the payments were made between January and April 2020 and published on the federal government’s open treasury portal without details.

Quoting 2011 Freedom of Information Act (FOI), HEDA requested that the details be provided within seven days or legal prosecution processes begin.

The organisation said the OAGF may have flaunted financial rules by making the payments into various government accounts without details of what the funds were meant for.

“One of the cardinal principles of accountability are that payments made by the OAGF into any government account must give details of what the funds are meant for. This is the best global practice adopted by many countries who are committed to the fight against corruption,” HEDA said in the letter signed by Rebecca David, its legal officer.

Quoting a May 29 report, ‘N173 billion payments without description defeats Nigeria’s open government initiative’, the payments were said to have been discovered during an analysis of the open treasury portal by Dataphyte.

The N173 billion was reported to have occurred in 1,353 payments to various ministries, parastatals, security agencies, educational institutes, among others.

Recalled that minister of finance launched the open treasury portal on December 9, 2019, saying the office of the accountant general of the federal would publish payments of at least N10 million outlining the MDA responsible, the beneficiary, the purpose and amount of each payment while ministries, departments and agencies are required to publish payments above N5 million.