The Federal Government, yesterday, directed the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to audit all existing funds established by law to support key sectors of the economy.
The funds which include the Education Trust Fund (ETF), Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF), Agricultural Development Fund (ADF) among others are to be audited in order to ascertain what had been done so far and how they have been able to positively affect the needs for which they were created.
Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents? after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the presidential villa, Abuja said that there were several funds that had been established in different Ministries, Departments and Agencies,MDAs, to support specific activities in the economy and that over the years, these funds have contributed to the development of those sectors of the economy.
He however noted that, “one thing that has become clear which council observed is that we have not been able to monitor the management of these funds on routine basis and also to establish to the extent to which they meet the needs for which the funds were established and council decided it is time to take stock”.
Maku, who was with the Ministers of Communication Technology, Omobolaji Johnson as well as Science and Technology, Prof Ita Ewa at the briefing, said that most often, there had been demands by different MDAs for the setting up? of special funds to support their programmes.