2022
https://www.dataphyte.com/latest-reports/governance/suspicious https://www.dataphyte.com/latest-reports/in-3-months-five-federal-govt-agencies-paid-n790-million-without-description/
Country/area: Nigeria
Organisation: Dataphyte.
Organisation size: Small
Cover letter:
I am Kafilat Taiwo, a Data journalist at Dataphyte. Dataphyte is news medium based in Abuja,Nigeria. As a data journalist, I’ve done investigations with the aid of data. In October,2021, I did an investigation on “How five Federal Government MDAs made payments without description.” This report made it to the Editor’s pick.
Also, in December 2021, I did an investigation on the Nigerian Open Treasury Portal on ” Suspicious payment by the Federal Government’s Ministeries; Departments and Agencies into personal accounts.” This story made it to the Organization’s top 21 stories in 2021.
These stories have put the MDAs on their toes. The MDAs are now aware that the datas on the Open Treasury Portal are being investigated by journalists.
Description of portfolio:
The story revealed how Federal Government Ministeries,Department,and Agencies released 4billion into personal accounts. The Nigerian Open Treasury Portal was created for accountability and Transparency purpose. Investigation into the Open Treasury Portal revealed that the MDAs have made several suspicious transactions. The payments into personal accounts are suspicious because the payments were not made into either suppliers nor contractors’ accounts,instead, they were disbursed into individuals’ accounts.
Before I embarked on the project, I’ve done several analysis such as consultation into the Nigerian Financial Procurement act .Despite having a concrete evidence, the difficulty I encountered was that: the MDAs were not ready to own up. I called several stakeholders incharge,still, they kept information to themselves. After several months of investigating, I was able to file my report.
After the report was published, members of the public charged the Federal Government to look into the MDAs activities for accountability purpose.
