Senate alleges N7B fraud in National Lottery Trust Fund

The Senate also alleged that the agency engaged in violating due process in the award of contract worth N1.12 billion tagged "Intervention budget distribution.

Chairman of the Senate panel, Senator Solomon Adeola (APC Lagos West), made the allegations in Abuja during the ongoing Investigation into the remittances by ministries departments and agencies, MDAs from 2014 to 2020 and payment of one percent stamp duty on all contract awards within same period.

Adeola claimed that NLTF, during the period under review declared N7 billion, but said further investigation by the committee revealed that the money spent on good course is more than what was declared by the agency as Internally Generated Revenue, IGR.

He said: "We discovered another monumental fraud from the National Lottery Trust Fund for money ordinarily should have been used for good course in accordance with their Act.

"The total money accruing to them in the period under review is about N7 billion but by the time we marry this money with the good course to be provided, we noticed that the amount expended on good course is even more than the amount that is declared.

"And the question is where do you get this excess fund? Do you have any other source of income? The answer is no. And what that simply implies is under declaration of revenue."

The total procurement cost for the contract awarded without due process was N800 million, while consultancy service was N185 million and the Public Awareness and Media cost N50 million while N50 million was spent on project administration and N25 million was spent on contingency.

The senator revealed that the consultancy fee which was about N185 million was expected to be N80 million which was the 10% of the contract cost.