National Cash Transfer Office disputes audit query over N33.75bn transfers

THE National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO) has rejected claims that an audit query over N33.75 billion disbursed under the Federal Government’s cash transfer programme in 2023 indicates fraud or financial impropriety.

The office said the observation by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation (OAuGF) should not be interpreted as a finding that the funds were stolen, diverted, misappropriated or lost.

The dispute followed an OAuGF report which said there was insufficient evidence to establish that N33.75 billion paid out to 3.29 million vulnerable households in 2023 actually reached genuine beneficiaries.

The finding was contained in the auditor-general’s 2024 annual report on non-compliance and internal control weaknesses across federal ministries, departments and agencies.

In a statement on Thursday, the NCTO said the funds were transferred electronically through the programme’s approved payment infrastructure to beneficiaries who had been identified and validated.

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It said the programme operates multiple controls covering beneficiary identification, validation, authorisation and payment.

According to the office, beneficiaries cannot be paid simply because their names appear on a payment list. Instead, payments are processed against beneficiary records held in the programme’s electronic information systems and subjected to several verification stages.

The NCTO said its payment architecture was designed to prevent transfers to people outside the approved beneficiary pool.

It therefore disputed any suggestion that the N33.75 billion was paid to unidentified or unverifiable individuals. The office added that beneficiary information and payment records are maintained electronically and can be reconciled at data level to establish the identity of recipients and the corresponding transactions.

It argued that printing millions of beneficiary records and attaching them individually to payment vouchers was unnecessary where a complete electronic audit trail existed.

NCTO says beneficiary register was sent to auditors

The cash transfer office also challenged the suggestion that it failed to provide the auditors with the beneficiary information required to verify the payments.

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NCTO said it had email records showing that the 2023 National Beneficiary Register was sent to the audit team on April 18, 2025, at 11:48 a.m.

It said records for the 2024 and 2025 beneficiary registers were subsequently transmitted to the auditors on April 21, 2026, at 6:25 p.m.

The office said copies of the email correspondence would be provided as evidence that the relevant records were transmitted.

“These are contemporaneous electronic records carrying identifiable dates and times of transmission and are available for independent verification,” the NCTO said.

It consequently rejected any suggestion that management deliberately withheld beneficiary information needed for the audit.

Office disputes REMITA report claim

The NCTO also disputed the auditor’s position regarding the availability of the REMITA payment statement.

According to the office, its project accountant has email evidence showing that the relevant REMITA payment report was sent to the audit team.

It said the correspondence provides documentary evidence that the payment information was made available during the audit process.

The office maintained that the absence of millions of beneficiary records in printed form should not be treated as evidence that the beneficiaries could not be identified or that payment records did not exist.

Rather, it said the information was maintained electronically and could be independently examined and reconciled.

The NCTO said its records showed that both the beneficiary information and REMITA payment data were transmitted to the auditors and remained available for verification.

It urged that the audit observation be assessed against the documentary records available rather than interpreted as evidence that N33.75 billion was paid to unidentified beneficiaries.