AGF says Nigeria saves over N250bn from IPPIS as Senate rejects budget of N’Delta ministry

According to the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, Nigeria has saved over N250 billion in 3 years due to the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Idris who confirmed this during the budget defence before the Senate Committee on Finance, said the IPPIS is an Information Communications Technology (ICT) project of the Federal Government to ensure effectiveness and efficiency of payroll management by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).

According to him in 2017, 2018, and 2019 the system saved Nigeria over N50 billion, N100 billion, and N80 billion respectively.

The Accountant-General also confirmed that all staff of tertiary institutions would be integrated into the IPPIS system according to President Muhammadu Buhari in his 2020 budget presentation speech earlier this month.

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In a similar development, the Senate Committee on Niger Delta has rejected the N23 billion capital expenditure budgeted for the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs due to uncompleted projects in the region.

The committee chairperson, Sen Peter Nwaoboshi disclosed this at the budget defence by the Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio.

Nwaoboshi said that during an oversight exercise done on the ministry, it was discovered that several projects were abandoned in the 9 states of the Niger Delta.

“There is no state, I dare to say that there is no local government where there are no abandoned projects in the Niger Delta.

“We cannot continue like that. With all the abandoned projects in the Niger Delta and we are talking about new projects; these new projects are designed to fail.

“Honourable minister, we need to look at this budget again and we expect you to do your clean up because the document we needed were not supplied to us,” he said.

The Senator representing Cross River, Sandy Ojang said “We just looked at the presentation and we are faced again with the vanity of having a budget and almost through the budget year, there are no capital release.

“It calls for concern and deep worry. A budget situation where the capital outlay is even lower than personnel and other costs is a problem”.

The ministry is expected to appear before the committee again on Monday, October 28, 2019.

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