Government-funded empowerment items meant to alleviate poverty are being hoarded and diverted by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in Nigeria, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has found.
According to ICPC’s latest Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative (CEPTI) report, some intervention agencies routinely hand over empowerment items to political stakeholders instead of directly distributing them to beneficiaries.
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This practice, the anti-graft agency said, has led to hoarding, politicisation, and corruption in the management of government-funded projects.
The findings are detailed in the latest CEPTI report, which covered the Phase 6 of the project tracking exercise, an initiative designed to ensure the appropriate use of funds allocated for zonal intervention projects, also known as constituency projects.
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ICPC said the latest phase of the tracking exercise examined 1,721 projects funded under the 2020, 2021, and 2022 national budgets.
According to the report, the projects were tracked during the CEPTI Phase VI exercise between November 2023 and May 2024.
The exercise focused on key sectors such as health, agriculture, education, water resources, and power.
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It also tracked intervention projects implemented by major agencies, including the North East Development Commission (NEDC), Ecological Fund Office (EFO), Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), and National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).
According to the ICPC, the latest phase of the tracking exercise examined 1,721 projects across five sectors, with a particular focus on six key intervention agencies: NEDC, EFO, PAP, NDDC, NSITF, and NHIA.
“While the exercise was limited to 26 states across the six geopolitical zones, the report of the exercise as presented shows that a total of 1,721 government funded projects with total value standing at N284.6 billion was tracked.
“The tracking exercise revealed several infractions ranging from project underperformance, non-distribution of empowerment items, project abandonment amongst others,” ICPC chairpersons Musa Aliyu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), wrote in the foreword of the CEPTI.
Delay in distributing items
The report revealed widespread financial mismanagement, with several agencies failing to distribute items procured with public funds.
At the NEDC, for example, the ICPC found that poor record-keeping and administrative bottlenecks delayed distribution, leading to the expiration of stored items and the wastage of government resources.
“In the NEDC, we found cases where stored items expired before they could be distributed due to bureaucratic delays and poor record-keeping,” the report stated.
The ICPC also found that some agencies hired consultants who lacked the expertise to oversee projects, leading to poor-quality execution.
“Many of these agencies are employing consultants who do not have the requisite capacity to supervise projects. This has resulted in substandard work, abandoned projects, and mismanagement of funds,” the report noted.
The report also exposed how store officers issued Store Receipt Vouchers (SRVs) for supplies that never arrived. In some instances, officers allegedly colluded with contractors, falsely documenting the receipt of items that were never delivered.
In addition, selective tendering processes were frequently abused under the guise of “emergency procurement,” the report found.
This practice, the ICPC warned, undermines competition, encourages favouritism, and inflates project costs.
Abandoned and unused projects
The report raised concerns about completed projects that remain unoccupied or non-functional.
For instance, at the Federal University of Gashua, a TETFUND project was finished but left unused. Similarly, a cattle market built by the NEDC in Soro, Bauchi State, was found to be abandoned.
The report stated that the NEDC’s 500-unit Mass Housing Scheme in the North-east also suffered from poor planning and execution.
It explained that houses were constructed without estate road networks or drainage channels, while many completed units remained unoccupied.
The ICPC found that only one consultant was assigned to oversee all projects in each state, leading to weak oversight and substandard construction.
Misuse of empowerment projects
The report revealed that empowerment projects have become a major channel for diverting public funds.
Of the 1,721 tracked projects, 449 were empowerment-related, accounting for 26.1 percent of the total. The total contract value of these projects stood at N35.58 billion, yet many were hijacked for political purposes, the report said.
“In all the shenanigans found in the tracking of empowerment projects, contractors, project facilitators, and executing agency staff cannot be excused of gross connivance,” the ICPC stated.
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According to the report, political stakeholders were often allowed to control distribution, leading to hoarding and potential use for electoral campaigns.
The report detailed further systemic issues across various projects, including under-performance in project execution, which remains a major challenge, particularly in Zonal Intervention Projects.
ICPC said many projects suffered from poor construction quality and cost padding, hence large-scale project abandonment due to inadequate funding and poor planning.
Recommendations
The ICPC has begun enforcing the distribution of recovered empowerment items and has urged MDAs to allow independent monitoring of distributions to prevent further abuses.
The commission also recommended pre-execution tracking to ensure that projects deliver actual benefits rather than serving as political tools.
“To stem the tide of empowerment items being converted for personal use or political gain, pre-execution tracking is most ideal,” the report recommended.
The ICPC emphasised that stronger oversight and accountability are necessary to prevent continued misuse of government-funded projects.
Without systemic reforms, ICPC said the diversion of public funds and politicisation of government interventions will likely persist.
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