How PPPRA Under Abdulkadir Umar Carried Out Irregular Payments, Failure to Submit Audited Financial Statements, and Other Issues

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A review of the records of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Abuja, for the 2018 and 2019 financial years has uncovered irregular payments, an overpayment of foreign-training allowances, failure to submit audited financial statements to the Auditor-General and the funding of officials of its supervising ministry, involving a combined ₦8.17 million.

These were uncovered under the leadership of Abdulkadir Saidu Umar, who who served as Executive Secretary of the agency, having been seconded from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in April 2017 and formally appointed Executive Secretary in 2018.

It was discovered that ₦1.2 million was paid on 2 May 2019 as a sitting allowance to a full-time, salaried member of the PPPRA Governing Board who was not entitled to the payment.

The payment was contrary to the provisions of Establishment Circular SWC/S/04/S.310/T/65 of 8 April 2016, which provides that salaried chief executives and public servants serving on the board of their own agencies are not entitled to sitting allowance. The circular also limits sitting allowances to four meetings in a year.

Findings showed that four officers received ₦8,724,970 in foreign-training estacode allowances despite an approved amount of ₦5,819,100, resulting in an overpayment of ₦2,905,870.

The excess payment was made through a voucher dated 31 December 2019 and was in violation of Paragraph 415 of the Financial Regulations 2009, which governs the payment of approved allowances.

Records reviewed also showed that PPPRA failed to submit its audited financial statements for the 2018 and 2019 financial years to the Auditor-General.

The non-submission of the financial statements was in violation of Paragraph 3210(v) of the Financial Regulations 2009, which requires the submission of audited financial statements to the Auditor-General as prescribed.

The review also established that ₦4,069,390 was paid on 21 March 2019 as an estacode for officers of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the supervising ministry of PPPRA.

The payment was made without any documented waiver authorising PPPRA to bear the cost. Funding officers of the supervising ministry were contrary to the Establishment Circular SGF.6/VIII of 8 May 2008, which provides that parastatals must not fund their supervising ministries.

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