Senate has indicted the Federal Mortgage Bank for non-recovery of loans and illegal award of contracts of N4.5 billion.

The indictment followed the report of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, after its consideration of the 2018 report of the Auditor-General of the Federation.

The breakdown of the mismanaged fund showed that the management of the Bank irregularly awarded N3.4 billion contracts, while the bank failed to recover N70 million trapped in a defunct bank.

In addition, the bank failed to recover areas and outstanding balances of loans trapped in the primary mortgage bank and Micro Finance bank which is about N1.3 billion.

The bank also failed to recover the N79 million loan granted to former officers of the bank and the non-recovery of the loan granted to former directors, amounting to about N65 million.

The query reads: “Contract awarded to a contractor in four places at a total sum of N3.0 billion. The 2nd, 3rd and 4 ty phases of the contract were above the approved threshold of the bank.

“It was observed that the contractor was overpaid in the sun of N118 that resulted from irregular addition of 5 per cent WHT in the bill of quantity on each of the four phases of the contract," it said.

The agency in its response to the query, said that the contractors had been engaged on issues raised by the Auditor-General and a settlement agreement had been entered into for a refund.

Consequently, the Committee ordered the Federal mortgage bank to account for the sum of N3.0 billion in contracts that were irregularly awarded.

Another query reads: “The sum of N13 billion granted as loans to six primary mortgage banks and a microfinance bank, remained outstanding as at the time of audit in 2917.”

The agency in its response said that the loans had already been referred to Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) to assist in the recovery of the funds. (New Telegraph)

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