The Auditor-General for the Federation, Shaakaa Chira, has raised concerns over N33.75bn in electronic cash transfers made to more than 3.29 million households whose identities and receipt of the funds could not be fully verified.

The finding was contained in the Auditor-General’s 2024 Annual Report on Non-Compliance and Internal Control Weaknesses in Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

The report reviewed transactions at the National Cash Transfer Office for the 2023 financial year and raised eight audit queries involving billions of naira.

According to the report, N33.751bn was transferred to 3,295,207 households and beneficiaries drawn from the National Social Register and enrolled on the National Beneficiary Register across 35 states.

However, auditors said the payment vouchers did not contain full beneficiary details, while the Remita statement needed to reconcile those who received the funds with those listed on the registers was not presented.

The report said the failure to provide the records made it difficult to establish whether the beneficiaries who received the money were genuine.

It added that attempts by auditors to obtain access to the Remita records were obstructed by accounts staff at the National Cash Transfer Office, frustrating the audit process.

The Auditor-General identified possible loss of public funds and payments to ineligible or fictitious beneficiaries as risks arising from the transactions.

He recommended that the National Programme Manager account to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly for the N33.75bn and provide evidence that the beneficiaries received the funds.

The report further recommended that the money be recovered and returned to the Treasury if it could not be satisfactorily accounted for.

The audit also flagged N36.74bn in payments made without prepayment audit, N4.616bn in expenditure without supporting vouchers and N350.18m in funds disbursed to state coordinators without adequate documentation.

Another N393.71m reportedly returned by nine State Cash Transfer Units could not be confirmed as having been credited to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The Auditor-General said the National Cash Transfer Office failed to respond to all eight audit queries raised in the report.