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In February 2021, two months after Issoufou Mohamed’s colt burst into power, the Prime Minister’s service no longer knew where to turn. The conclusions of the audit of the accounts of the National Food Crisis Prevention and Management System (DNP/GCA) were well-founded. Damning conclusions that were very embarrassing for the old regime. The audit, which covered the period 2017 and 2018, revealed the misappropriation of 5,654,441,684 CFA francs. This embezzlement was caused by unrecorded expenses amounting to 89,105,079 CFA francs, unjustified advances amounting to 5,260,775,077 CFA francs and inadequate supporting documentation involving 304,561,528 CFA francs. The Prime Minister’s Office tried at all costs to cover up this scandal, which affected the Prime Minister’s Office even more because its service had difficulty justifying the amounts in question. According to the audit report of Mazars, things became heated and everyone passed the buck. Everyone is fighting for their church due to the ambiguities found in the audit, especially the lack of extensive supporting documentation and traceability of the expenses incurred. The audit even noted the lack of terms of reference. However, the free flow of funds has undoubtedly swelled the bank accounts of certain key government officials. In the bank statements, unaccounted payments were found. 26,256,385 FCFA in 2017 and 62,848,694 FCFA in 2018, for a total amount of 89,105,079 FCFA.
Purchase of grain without invoice
The audit found advances of approximately FCFA 5,260,775,077 as of the end of the 2018 financial year, especially to ineligible non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The National Mechanism for the Prevention and Management of Food Crises was subsequently requested to provide supporting documentation for the actions undertaken. According to the audit report, a large amount of supporting documentation was provided, but it was not valid. The lack of supporting documentation was highlighted in the SAP (Early Warning System) module transactions related to certain activities, especially workshops and trainings. This was the case in the report of the November 2018 coordination framework workshop, the 2018 edition of the Household Food Insecurity Vulnerability Survey, and the report of the November 2017 coordination framework workshop.
The direct purchase of grain by the Nigerien Food Office (OPVN) did not escape the auditors’ vigilance either. Grain was found to have been purchased without invoices, just as the auditors found no evidence of the provision of certain services. This was the case of a contract with a service provider not identified by Le Courrier, for which an amount of 15,600,000 FCFA had been allocated but which was not supported by invoices. There were also a large number of other transactions, valued at 46,150,000 FCFA. The amount involved in the “lack of supporting documentation” category totaled 304,561,528 FCFA.
Unidentified Donor Contributions
To better refine their analysis, the auditors asked donors for confirmation of balances. Their answer was clear. Some contributions had not yet been recorded. This was the case in 2017 and 2018 for Swiss Cooperation, the French Embassy’s contribution under the Common Donation Fund (FCD), and Swiss Cooperation’s funding under institutional support. This confusion, perhaps deliberately organized to hide the traces of criminal behavior, was unprecedented. Thus, subsidies paid by Luxembourg Cooperation in the amount of 655,957,000 CFA francs, by Monaco in the amount of 91,833,980 CFA francs and by Spain in the amount of 655,957,000 CFA francs were recorded in the special account of the FCD. The audience pointed out that this was wrong.
Financial chaos may be intentional
The confusion of DNP/GCA accounting entries is in fact a tradition under Issoufou Mahamadou, as it was also noted in the 2016 management. The stocktaking mission at the end of the 2016 fiscal year covered only the regions of Dosso, Tillaberi and Niamey. However, the results of the previous audit of the 2016 fiscal year, conducted by another company in December 2018, painfully pointed out that it was not possible to make a ruling on this due to the uncertainty of the stocks. It was not possible to reconstitute the national security stock as of December 31, 2016, especially since there were no stock movements in the Lazaret center. However, the opening stock for the 2017 fiscal year was estimated at 23,432,039,319 FCFA. The auditors also discovered, through the reconciliation of the stock reports and the DNP/GCA stocks in the accounting, that the value of the stocks was underestimated at 226,777,770 FCFA in 2017 and 1,281,894,143 FCFA in 2018.
There’s nothing in the rearview mirror except a multi-billion dollar scandal
There were numerous financial scandals from the time the PNDS came to power in 2011 until its fall in July 2023, and there is no doubt that our assessment of the corruption during the 10 years of the “Isufian” rule is far from imagination. All departments, all funds pass through it, including those allocated for military security and food security. In February 2020, an audit of the army’s funds revealed a scandal of misappropriation of tens of billions of dollars between 2014 and 2019. In 2015, when the people of Diffa bore the brunt of the abuses of Boko Haram, 15,000 tons of rice provided by Pakistan to help the severely affected people were diverted and sold in the port of Cotonou for personal use.
Rabbi Koye (The Messenger)
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