FG saved N500bn blocking MDAs leakages, wastage - Perm Sec

The Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Federal Ministry of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Dikwa, has said, the Federal Government has saved at least N500bn by blocking leakages and wastage in the Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) of government.

Dr. Dikwa stated this when the Alumni of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Abuja Chapter visited him in his office in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to him, most of the leakages were blocked when he was the head of the Presidential Initiative for Continuous Audit (PICA).

He said his experience gotten at NIPSS impacted his quality administration at PICA and at the Ministry of Finance.

“If you recall, over the last four years, this administration has put in place a lot of policies on ground and I am part of the financial policies put in place at the Ministry of Finance. I headed most of the reforms at the Ministry of Finance for the past four years. There are tangible results we have gotten over the years,” he said.

“One of the fundamental achievements was saving the government over N500billion from leakages and wastages under my leadership at PICA,” he noted.

The Permanent Secretary said: “we have also put in place so many other measures like the Whistleblowing Policy. The Whistleblowing Policy was initiated under my Chairmanship in PICA. We were able to succeed not only from recoveries, but stopped people from doing the wrong things as far as the government circle was concern.”

“When we came up with the policy, an average of 11, 000 tips were received on a monthly basis, but now, we hardly receive 20 to 30 tips simply because people have reduced the wrong doing in government. Before, funds are released to MDAs for specific purpose, but before you know, the money would be diverted into other things, and nobody knows” he noted.