The National Lottery Trust Fund (NLTF) has been accused of perpetrating fraud running to over N7 billion.
Adeola Olamilekan, Chairman of the Senate committee on Finance, made the allegation during ongoing investigation into remittances by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) between 2014 and 2020, and payment of one per cent stamp duty on all contract awards within the same period.
According to him, the agency was also accused of not following the required due process in awarding a contract worth N1.12 billion tagged “Intervention budget distribution” that was requested for in a letter dated March 12, 2014.
At the investigation, the chairman of the committee said that during the period under review, the agency declared N7billion, but investigation by the committee revealed that the money spent “on good course” is more than the amount declared by the agency as its internally generated revenue.
“We discovered another monumental fraud from the National Lottery Trust Fund for money that ordinarily should have been used for good course in accordance with their Act.”
He said the total money accruing to them in the period under review was about N7 billion, but by the time this amount is married with the good course to be provided, we noticed that the amount expended on good course is even more than the amount that was declared.
“The questions are: from where did you get the excess fund; do you have any other source of income? The answer is no. And what that simply implies is under- declaration of revenue,” the panel chairman said.
The total procurement cost for the contract awarded without due process was put at N800 million, consultancy service was N185 million, public awareness and media cost was N50 million, N50 million was spent on project administration while N25 million was spent on contingency.
It was gathered that the consultancy fee, which was about N185 million, was expected to be N80 million, which is 10 per cent of the contract cost.