Supreme Court in suspicious N12 billion payments, unauthorised sale of assets –Audit Report reveals

Nigeria’s Supreme Court spent over N12 billion in breach of financial regulations for five years, the latest audit report of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAuGF) has revealed.

The funds should be recovered and remitted to the treasury by the Chief Registrar of the court, the audit report, released in December 2023, recommended.

The report essentially covers the expenditures and finances of ministries, departments and agencies of the federal government for the 2020 fiscal year, but for the Supreme Court, it stretches forward and backwards to touch on some major payments and transactions executed from 2017 to 2021.

The current Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Hajo Sarki-Bello, assumed office in 2021, a year after the alleged infractions took place under Hadizatu Uwani-Mustapha.

Mrs Uwani-Mustapha, who was the Supreme Court’s chief registrar for most of the period when the flagged transactions took place, retired from the court as Chief Registrar in June 2021.

Walter Onnoghen, who was the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) between 2016 and 2019, and his successor Tanko Muhammad, who was CJN between 2019 and 2022, oversaw the Supreme Court during the period of the controversial payments and transactions spotlighted by Nigeria’s auditor-general.

Mr Muhammad abruptly resigned from office, citing health issues in June 2022, amid a raging, unprecedented protest from his colleague justices of the Supreme Court about his handling of the finances and other affairs of the court at the time.

Highlights of the issues raised concerning the transactions totalling N12.335 billion in the 2020 audit report include – payments for contracts without budgetary provisions, diversion of government assets for private use, inflation of contract price, irregular award of contracts and overpayment to contractors, among others.

Credit: premiumtimesng.com

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