N2.67bn meant for school feeding programme during lockdown diverted to private accounts – ICPC
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission ICPC says it has uncovered up to N2.67 billion meant for school feeding during the COVID-19 lockdown in personal bank accounts. 
The Chairman of ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, disclosed this on Monday, September 28, while delivering a keynote address at the second National Summit on Diminishing Corruption with the theme: “Together Against Corruption and the launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy” held at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The ICPC chairman also disclosed that it recently uncovered over N2.5 billion diverted by a deceased senior civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture and his cronies. He highlighted other assets recovered in the Agric ministry to include 18 buildings, 12 business premises and 25 plots of land.
According to Owasanoye, under the Open Treasury Portal review carried out between January to August 15, 2020, out of 268 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), 72 of them had cumulative infractions of N90 million. He said while 33 MDAs tendered explanations that N4.1 billion was transferred to sub-TSA, N4.2 billion paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations.
“We observed that transfers to sub-TSA was to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into these finding.”Owasanoye said The ICPC boss also said under its 2020 constituency and executive projects tracking initiative, 722 projects with a threshold of N100 million (490 ZiP and 232 executive) was tracked across 16 states.
