The Federal Government has expressed determination to migrate the military’s payroll to its Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) before December 2016.
Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun disclosed this at the meeting of government’s Continuous Audit Team with the military finance team in Abuja yesterday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Federal Government had set up the Continuous Audit Team to look into the finances of federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
“We do plan to enroll all our military payroll to IPPIS before the end of the year, but, in the interim, it is necessary to respond to allegations and revelations of excesses on the payroll.
“We want to investigate whether or not they are true and correct and, also, to ensure that whatever steps have been taken to block those leakages in future are effective and adequate. So, it is in this light that I discussed with the Minister of Defence the need to carry out an audit of the military payroll to improve the controls and make sure that every naira going to the military is for valid reasons,’’ she said.
Adeosun said the ministry was making efforts to quickly automate the payroll of all the branches of the armed forces to avoid such occurrences in future.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Mr Danjuma Sheni, assured the audit team of the ministry’s cooperation throughout the exercise.
Head of the Continuous Audit Team, Mr Mohammed Dikwa said the team was also looking at enrolling the military into the
Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).
He said this would help to keep proper accounts and effective tab of the resources of the Army, Navy and Air Force.