Tinubu Government Cannot Prove N33.75bn Cash Transfers Reached 3.29m Beneficiaries — Auditor-General

The Federal Government has failed to provide sufficient evidence that N33.75 billion in cash transfers made to more than 3.29 million vulnerable households in 2023 actually reached genuine beneficiaries, according to the Auditor-General for the Federation.

The revelation was contained in the Auditor-General’s 2024 Annual Report on Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses in Ministries, Departments and Agencies, which reviewed transactions at the National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO), Abuja, for the 2023 financial year.

The report raised eight audit queries involving billions of naira and identified significant weaknesses in the office’s financial controls.

According to the report, electronic transfers totalling N33.751 billion were made to 3,295,207 households and beneficiaries listed on the National Social Register (NSR) and enrolled on the National Beneficiary Register (NBR) across 35 states.

However, auditors said the payment vouchers did not contain complete beneficiary details, while the Remita statement required to reconcile the recipients with those listed on the NSR and NBR was not provided.

The report stated that the absence of the Remita statement prevented auditors from authenticating the payments and determining whether the funds were received by genuine beneficiaries.

“All efforts to obtain access to the REMITA statement were obstructed and denied by NTCO accounts staff, thereby frustrating the audit process,” the report stated.

The Auditor-General identified possible payments to ineligible or fictitious persons, as well as potential loss of public funds, as risks arising from the failure to provide the records.

It recommended that the National Programme Manager account to the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committees for the N33.75 billion and provide evidence that the listed beneficiaries actually received the funds.

The report further recommended that any amount that could not be satisfactorily accounted for should be recovered and remitted to the Treasury.

The NCTO management, according to the report, failed to respond to the audit query.

Other Financial Irregularities

Auditors also queried N36.744 billion paid through 215 vouchers relating to SS, IDA and output-based transactions in December 2023.

The payments were made without internal audit checks or prepayment audit, contrary to existing regulations.

“None of the paid vouchers were pre-audited or checked by the Internal Audit as required by extant regulations,” the report said.

The Internal Audit Unit instead conducted checks after the payments had been made. Auditors warned that the practice created risks of misapplication and diversion of public funds and recommended that the N36.74 billion be properly accounted for before the National Assembly.

Another 101 payments totalling N4.616 billion made from the NCTO’s S&S/IDA Cash Book were not supported by paid vouchers.

The Auditor-General again warned of possible diversion of funds and recommended that the money be accounted for or recovered and remitted to the Treasury.

The report also found that N350.18 million disbursed to states for the enrolment of unbanked beneficiaries was not satisfactorily accounted for.

Of the N3.09 billion paid in 32 transactions to states, documents covering N2.74 billion disbursed to 34 states were presented, leaving N350.18 million unsupported.

The auditors said the vouchers were vague and lacked beneficiary lists, photographs, attendance registers, enrolment reports and acknowledgements from recipients.

The Auditor-General recommended recovery of the N350.18 million if it could not be accounted for.

Similarly, N393.71 million returned by nine State Cash Transfer Units was not supported by evidence showing that the money had been credited to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The NCTO reportedly failed to provide documents confirming that the refunded funds were credited to the CRF. Remita inflow statements and payment slips were also unavailable, while there was no evidence that the affected states subsequently conducted the enrolment exercises.

The NCTO also paid N280.42 million as a 30 per cent mobilisation to Payment Service Providers without an Advance Payment Guarantee.

Auditors found no evidence of due process, including pre-qualification documents, bidding records or technical and financial evaluations. They recommended recovery of the money over the risk of payment for jobs not executed and possible diversion of funds.

Store items worth N89.51 million purchased by the office were also not entered into its store ledger. No Store Receipt or Store Issue Vouchers were attached, while the ledger had reportedly not been updated since 2020.

The office further spent N17.42 million on diesel through cash advances to staff instead of contract awards, despite the expenditure exceeding the N200,000 procurement threshold.

According to the report, the diesel could neither be sighted nor traced to the stores. The procurement method also resulted in an estimated N2.18 million in foregone VAT and Withholding Tax revenue.

For all eight audit queries, the report said NCTO management failed to respond.

Scrutiny Of Nigeria’s Cash Transfer Programme

The findings come amid increased scrutiny of Nigeria’s social intervention programmes and the management of funds allocated to vulnerable households.

Nigeria has drawn an additional $208.29 million from the World Bank’s $800 million National Social Safety Net Programme-Scale Up, bringing cumulative disbursements to about $744.61 million, or 93.1 per cent of the facility.

The programme was designed to expand Nigeria’s social safety net and provide cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households.

Following the removal of the petrol subsidy in 2023, the Federal Government revised the original N5,000 monthly payment to N25,000 for three months, with a target of 15 million households.

The programme has faced controversies over alleged financial mismanagement. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigated an alleged N37.1 billion fraud involving the office of former Humanitarian Affairs Minister Sadiya Umar-Farouq.

Her successor, Betta Edu, was suspended after a N585 million transfer to a private account was reported, while former National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA) head Halima Shehu was arrested over an alleged movement of N44 billion from agency accounts.

In 2025, the World Bank said only 37 per cent of targeted households had benefited from the conditional cash transfer programme.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has also called on the Federal Government to reconcile conflicting beneficiary figures and publish verified household records, payment tranches, state-by-state distributions, failed transactions and reversals.

The latest Auditor-General’s findings are likely to further intensify scrutiny of the government’s management of cash-transfer funds and the systems used to verify beneficiaries and track payments.