The Auditor-General for the Federation has raised concerns over N33.75bn in cash transfers made to more than 3.29 million households in 35 states in 2023, saying the Federal Government could not provide sufficient evidence that the funds reached genuine beneficiaries.
The finding was contained in the Auditor-General’s 2024 Annual Report on Non-Compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government, obtained by the* PUNCH* on Saturday 5th September 2026.
The audit, which reviewed transactions at the National Cash Transfer Office in Abuja for the 2023 financial year, raised eight queries involving billions of naira and identified significant weaknesses in the office’s financial controls.
According to the report, electronic transfers totalling N33.751bn were made to 3,295,207 households and beneficiaries drawn from the National Social Register and enrolled on the National Beneficiary Register across 35 states.
However, the auditors said the payment vouchers did not contain complete beneficiary details, while the Remita statement needed to reconcile the recipients with those listed on the two registers was not made available.
The auditors said this prevented them from authenticating the payments and determining whether the beneficiaries were genuine.
“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 loss of public funds and payments to ineligible or fictitious beneficiaries as risks arising from the transaction.
It recommended that the National Programme Manager account to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly for the N33.75bn and provide evidence that the beneficiaries received the funds.
It further recommended that any amount that could not be satisfactorily accounted for should be recovered and remitted to the Treasury.
The report also noted that the management of the National Cash Transfer Office failed to respond to the audit query.
N36.74bn paid without pre-audit
The Auditor-General also queried N36.74bn in payments made without the required internal audit checks.
The report said 215 payment vouchers relating to SS, IDA and output-based transactions in December 2023, amounting to N36.744bn, were raised and paid without prepayment audit.
“None of the paid vouchers were pre-audited or checked by the Internal Audit as required by extant regulations,” the report said.
Instead, the Internal Audit Unit conducted checks after the payments had been made.
The auditors identified possible misapplication and diversion of public funds as risks and recommended that the N36.74bn be fully accounted for before the National Assembly.
In another query, the NTCO made 101 payments totalling N4.616bn from its S&S/IDA Cash Book for various expenditures but failed to present the relevant paid vouchers for examination.
The Auditor-General again identified the risk of misapplication and diversion and recommended that the money be accounted for or recovered and remitted to the Treasury.
N350.18m enrolment funds unaccounted for
The audit also raised concerns over N350.18m in funds disbursed to state coordinators for the enrolment of unbanked beneficiaries.
The report said 32 payments totalling N3.09bn were made to states for the exercise. While documents covering N2.74bn disbursed to 34 states were presented for examination, N350.18m remained unaccounted for.
The auditors also found that the vouchers presented were vague and did not show how the funds were spent.
They said supporting documents, including beneficiary lists, photographs of activities, signed attendance registers, enrolment reports and acknowledgements from recipients, were not attached to the vouchers.
The Auditor-General recommended recovery and remittance of the N350.18m to the Treasury if the funds could not be satisfactorily accounted for.
N393.71m refund not verified
Another N393.71m in unused enrolment funds returned by nine State Cash Transfer Units was also queried.
The NTCO told the auditors that the affected states could not conduct the enrolment exercises because of insecurity, disasters and other factors, and consequently returned the funds to the Treasury in 2023.
However, the audit report said the NTCO failed to provide evidence that the money had been credited to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Remita inflow statements and Internal Revenue Receipt pay slips were also not provided, while there was no evidence that the affected states subsequently conducted the enrolment exercises.
N280.42m advance payment questioned
The auditors also queried a N280.42m mobilisation payment made to Payment Service Providers engaged to provide a platform for transferring cash to beneficiaries.
The payment, representing a 30 per cent advance, was made without an Advance Payment Guarantee.
The auditors further found no evidence that due process was followed in selecting the service providers. The files contained no pre-qualification documents, bidding records or technical and financial evaluation reports.
The report identified payment for jobs not done and diversion of funds as possible risks and recommended recovery of the N280.42m.
Other procurement breaches
The audit found that store items valued at N89.51m, which were purchased and paid for by the NTCO, were not recorded in its store ledger.
The relevant payment vouchers had no Store Receipt Vouchers or Store Issue Vouchers attached, while the office’s store ledger had not been updated since 2020.
The auditors also queried N17.42m spent on diesel, saying the money was given to staff as cash advances rather than being processed through contract awards despite exceeding the N200,000 procurement threshold.
The auditors said the items purchased could neither be sighted nor traced to the stores.
They estimated that the procurement method resulted in N2.18m in forgone Value Added Tax and Withholding Tax revenue to the government.
The report stated that, across all eight audit findings, the management of the National Cash Transfer Office failed to respond to the queries.
Audit concerns emerge amid expanded cash-transfer programme
The latest findings come amid the Federal Government’s continued expansion of its social intervention programme and increased reliance on cash transfers to cushion the impact of economic hardship.
Nigeria recently drew an additional $208.29m from the World Bank under the $800m National Social Safety Net Programme-Scale Up, bringing cumulative disbursements under the facility to about $744.61m, or 93.1 per cent of the approved amount.
The International Development Association-funded facility was designed to strengthen Nigeria’s social safety net and provide financial support to poor and vulnerable households.
The programme became a major source of funding for the Federal Government’s social intervention efforts following the removal of the petrol subsidy in May 2023.
The original scheme provided N5,000 monthly to targeted households. Under the revised arrangement, payments were increased to N25,000 monthly for three months, with the government targeting millions of vulnerable households nationwide.
However, implementation has been dogged by delays and controversies over the management and disbursement of social intervention funds.
In December 2023, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission investigated an alleged N37.1bn fraud involving the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under former minister Sadiya Umar-Farouq.
Her successor, Betta Edu, was suspended by President Bola Tinubu in January 2024 after controversy over an authorised N585m transfer into a private account for payments to vulnerable groups. The Accountant-General of the Federation rejected the transaction, citing public financial regulations.
The EFCC subsequently said it had recovered about N32.7bn and $445,000 linked to the investigations.
Halima Shehu, who headed the National Social Investment Programme Agency, was also arrested over allegations involving the movement of N44bn from NSIPA accounts to several destinations.
Against this background, the President appointed former Finance Minister Wale Edun to lead a special investigative panel on the social investment programmes, with a mandate to strengthen accountability and reform the system.
The Federal Government subsequently moved to tighten beneficiary verification by working with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the National Identity Management Commission to link beneficiaries with Bank Verification Numbers and National Identification Numbers.
Earlier this year, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Bernard Doro, said about 9.2 million Nigerians had benefited from the Household Prosperity and Empowerment Cash Transfer Programme, with approximately N688bn disbursed over two years.
However, the World Bank had previously raised concerns about the reach of Nigeria’s conditional cash transfer programme, reporting that only 37 per cent of targeted households had benefited from the scheme.
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has also challenged the Federal Government to reconcile conflicting figures on the number of households reached by its expanded cash-transfer programme.
He called for the publication of detailed payment records, including verified beneficiary households, payment tranches, state-by-state disbursements, failed transactions and reversals.
The latest audit findings are therefore likely to intensify scrutiny of the government’s cash-transfer architecture, particularly the verification of beneficiaries, payment reconciliation and the ability of agencies responsible for social interventions to account for public funds.
