NECO paid N2.64bn of 2022 contractor bills in 2024, audit says; its recommendation asks for N2.11bn, and the 2024 Act gave NECO N100m of capital

The Auditor-General for the Federation says the National Examinations Council (NECO) paid N2,637,467,432.10 to contractors between January and September 2024 on 36 vouchers whose invoices, delivery notes, job completion certificates and requests for payment were all dated 2022. According to the report, NECO could not produce documentary evidence that the spending had been provided for in its approved estimates for 2024. The query is on pages 203 and 204 of Volume I of the Auditor-General's report on non-compliance for the year ended 31 December 2024, which Shaakaa Kanyitor Chira transmitted to the National Assembly on 17 July 2026. The 2024 Appropriation Act gave NECO one capital line that year: N100,000,000 for outstanding land compensation on its zonal and state offices in Kano State. When the audit reaches its recommendation on the N2.64 billion, it asks NECO's Registrar to account for a different sum, N2,109,921,272.00, which is the figure of the query before it, on examination fees owed by six state governments and a philanthropist.

NECO's answer, as the report prints it, is that the bills had been budgeted and were paid late: "The liabilities were provided for in the budget estimates and was approved in the year appropriation. However, the payment could not be made because of automatic deduction of 25% from Council's Revenue as against 80% Operating Surplus, also delay in settlement of debts by some States resulted in payment of creditor in the following year." The audit's evaluation is the sentence it uses for all seven NECO queries: the response "has been noted; however, it is deemed unsatisfactory", and the findings "remain valid until the recommendations are implemented". The report does not say what further document would have satisfied it. An audit query is a request to account to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly, not a finding of wrongdoing. The report lists "Diversion of public funds to private usage" among the risks of such payments; it does not find that any diversion took place, and no court has found that any did.

The recommendation is where the figures part. Under the heading "Wrong payment of previous years' liabilities with current years' allocation (=N2,637,467,432.10)", the Registrar is asked to "Account to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly the sum of N2,109,921,272.00", described as "payments made in 2024 to settle prior year liabilities without evidence of authorization", and to recover and remit the same N2,109,921,272.00 to the Treasury. That is N527,546,160.10 less than the payments the query itself describes. It is, to the kobo, the figure of Issue 2 on the page before, which concerns unpaid examination fees. Nothing in the text of Issue 3 mentions N2,109,921,272.00, and the report gives no reason for asking about a smaller sum.

Issue 2 is headed "Failure to recover arrears of NECO fees from defaulted state governments and other philanthropist". The audit found that six state governments and a philanthropist from Ebonyi State owed the council examination fees at 31 December 2024, and that "Records covering the period 2012 to 2024 revealed the sum of N2,109,921,272.00" outstanding and unrecovered. It does not name the six states or say how much each owes. NECO replied: "The Council has made efforts in recovering outstanding debt from States Government. The Philanthropist is not owing; in fact, he has overpaid by N2,403,000.00. Zamfara and Sokoto States has reduced its outstanding significantly and efforts are ongoing to recover from other States." The audit asks the Registrar to account for the N2,109,921,272.00 and to recover it and remit it to the Treasury. ThisDay reported on 3 February 2026 that NECO's Registrar, Ibrahim Dantani Wushishi, had said the 36 states owed the council close to N2 billion for examination registration; that is a newspaper account of a later period and was not checked against a record.

Two more recommendations carry a figure that belongs to another query. Issue 6, "Paid vouchers not presented for audit (=N142,829,711.92)", says that sum was paid through 12 vouchers that were not presented for audit although the payments passed through the Treasury cash book; NECO replied that the vouchers "may have been wrongly filed" and had been "sorted out and presented for auditors". Its recommendation asks the Registrar to account for N44,679,600.00, "being paid voucher not presented for audit". Issue 7 is headed N409,944,582.00 and its text gives N409,944,582.60, for four contracts to supply and install "P. Wise Software, E-Posting Calendar, Local Area Network (LAN) and Accessories" without clearance from the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). NECO replied that its procurement is approved by the Parastatals Tenders Board, the Ministerial Tenders Board and the Federal Executive Council depending on the threshold, and that "The Contractor that handled ICT procurement has NITDA clearance." The recommendation again asks for N44,679,600.00, "being payment for ICT facilities without NITDA certification". N44,679,600.00 is the figure of Issue 4, on store items paid for without evidence of delivery.

Added up, the seven query headings come to N5,799,197,267.02, or N5,799,197,267.62 if Issue 7's text figure is used instead of its heading. The seven recommendations ask NECO to account for N4,808,236,013.00. The difference, N990,961,254.62, is exactly the sum of the three gaps: N527,546,160.10 on Issue 3, N98,150,111.92 on Issue 6 and N365,264,982.60 on Issue 7. The report's own summary of cross-cutting issues, on page xv, charts NECO among ten bodies whose paid vouchers were not presented for examination, under a value label that begins "142,829,", which is the Issue 6 heading figure rather than N44,679,600.00. The report therefore uses both figures for the same query, and it does not say which one the Public Accounts Committees are meant to pursue.

The other three queries are smaller. Issue 1 records three transfers between April and June 2024, totalling US$56,381.00, which the report converts to N86,544,835.00, out of a dollar account NECO kept with United Bank for Africa (UK) Limited for foreign fees, with no documents to support them. NECO replied that "The Transfer was done by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation vide a letter reference No. OAGF/R&I/1808/11/252 dated 15th May, 2024" and that it had presented a bank statement showing the movement. Issue 4 concerns N44,679,600.00 paid for goods with no store receipt vouchers; NECO said the store officer "may have inadvertently forgotten" to enter them and the ledgers had been updated. Issue 5 concerns N367,809,834.00 paid on eight vouchers for various services without supporting documents, the missing evidence including items listed as "advert/production of jingle on exam, malpractice on NTA, media coverage of 2024 SSCE external monitoring"; NECO said the documents are attached to the final payment when payments are made in tranches. On these three, the recommendation figure matches the heading.

The Appropriation Acts show only the part of NECO that the Federation pays for directly. The 2024 Act, on page 1304, gives the council N9,993,762,848: N9,893,762,848 for personnel and N100,000,000 of capital, the Kano land compensation line, with no overhead line at all. The 2025 Act, on page 1460, gives N17,694,307,378: N15,694,307,378 for personnel, an overhead of 0 and N2,000,000,000 for the "Construction of warehouse in NECO headquarters, Minna", listed as ongoing. The 2026 Act, on page 1857, gives N16,930,016,632: N15,530,016,632 for personnel, an overhead of 0 and N1,400,000,000 for the same warehouse under the same project code, ERGP27107082. None of the three Acts funds NECO's overheads. Whatever the council spends on running costs comes from income the Acts do not show, which on the audit's own pages includes examination fees owed by states and foreign fees paid into its dollar account.

Set against the audit, the Acts settle one point and leave another open. The N2,637,467,432.10 paid to contractors in 2024 is 26.4 times the only capital line the 2024 Act gave NECO, and that line was for land compensation in Kano, not for bills from 2022, so the payments could not have been met from it. Whether they came from a budget NECO prepared for its own revenue, as its response implies, the Act cannot show, because that budget is not printed in it. The audit asked to see the approved 2024 estimates for that purpose and records that the evidence "could not be produced". NECO's response does not say which year's appropriation it means; if it is 2022, the year on the invoices, the 2022 Act was not examined for this report.

Parts of the record support the council. NECO answered all seven queries, and several answers cite something that can be checked: a letter from the Office of the Accountant-General with a reference number and date, and a bank statement, for the dollar transfers; NITDA clearance held by the ICT contractor; vouchers it says have since been found and presented; store ledgers it says have been updated. Its explanation for paying 2022 bills in 2024, that some states were slow to pay their fees, matches the audit's own finding a page earlier that six states and a philanthropist owed N2,109,921,272.00 at the end of 2024, some of it dating from 2012. The three Acts bear out that NECO is given no federal money for overheads. The audit rates every answer unsatisfactory without saying what was missing, and it does not record having examined the letter, the bank statement or the clearance.

The documents do not establish what the 36 vouchers paid for, who the contractors were or whether the goods and works were delivered; Issue 3 questions the year of the budget, not delivery. They do not name four of the six indebted states or say what each owes. They do not show whether the Public Accounts Committees have taken up the queries, or which of the two figures in Issues 3, 6 and 7 the committees will be asked to pursue. The Budget Office said on 7 January 2026 that the 2024 and 2025 Acts had been repealed and re-enacted; the figures here are from the Acts as first published, and the re-enacted versions were not checked. The responses quoted are those printed in the audit report; NECO's own account beyond them was not obtained for this report.

On the paper trail as it stands, the Auditor-General has asked NECO to explain N2.64 billion of 2022 bills paid in 2024 and N2.11 billion of examination fees it has not collected, and NECO has answered that the second is the reason for the first. The report's recommendations then ask for N990.96 million less than its own headings describe. The 2024 Act shows that the one capital line the National Assembly gave NECO that year, N100m for land compensation, could not have covered the payments, and the 2025 and 2026 Acts show a council whose federal money goes on salaries and a warehouse in Minna.

What this rests on

Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, Annual Report on Non-compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses in MDAs for the year ended 31 December 2024, Vol. I (transmittal letter AuGF/AR.2024/01 of 17 July 2026), section on the National Examination Council (NECO), Minna, pp.201 to 208 (PDF pp.237 to 244), and the cross-cutting issues summary, Issue 10, pp.xiv to xv. 2024 Appropriation Act, NECO (0517009001), p.1304 (PDF p.1334, scanned signed copy); 2025 Appropriation Act as passed, pp.1419 and 1460; 2026 Appropriation Act, pp.1817 and 1857. All read on the cited pages for this report; page extracts saved. Arithmetic re-done. Query headings: N86,544,835.00 + N2,109,921,272.00 + N2,637,467,432.10 + N44,679,600.00 + N367,809,834.00 + N142,829,711.92 + N409,944,582.00 = N5,799,197,267.02 (N5,799,197,267.62 using Issue 7's text figure of N409,944,582.60). Recommendation sums: N86,544,835.00 + N2,109,921,272.00 + N2,109,921,272.00 + N44,679,600.00 + N367,809,834.00 + N44,679,600.00 + N44,679,600.00 = N4,808,236,013.00. Gaps: Issue 3, N2,637,467,432.10 - N2,109,921,272.00 = N527,546,160.10; Issue 6, N142,829,711.92 - N44,679,600.00 = N98,150,111.92; Issue 7, N409,944,582.60 - N44,679,600.00 = N365,264,982.60; together N990,961,254.62 = N5,799,197,267.62 - N4,808,236,013.00. The audit text contradicts itself in four places: Issue 3's heading and observation give N2,637,467,432.10 but its recommendation gives N2,109,921,272.00 (Issue 2's figure); Issue 6's heading and observation give N142,829,711.92 but its recommendation gives N44,679,600.00 (Issue 4's figure); Issue 7's heading gives N409,944,582.00, its observation N409,944,582.60 and its recommendation N44,679,600.00 (Issue 4's figure); and the cross-cutting chart on p.xv labels NECO's unpresented vouchers with a figure beginning 142,829, while the Issue 6 recommendation says N44,679,600.00. Issue 1 conversion: N86,544,835.00 / US$56,381.00 = N1,535.00 to the dollar (the report does not state the rate). Acts: 2024, personnel N8,553,890,342 + N1,339,872,506 = N9,893,762,848, plus capital N100,000,000 = N9,993,762,848, no overhead line; 2025, N15,694,307,378 + 0 + N2,000,000,000 = N17,694,307,378 (personnel N13,598,707,076 + N2,095,600,302); 2026, N15,530,016,632 + 0 + N1,400,000,000 = N16,930,016,632 (personnel N13,322,459,161 + N2,207,557,471); warehouse N2,000,000,000 + N1,400,000,000 = N3,400,000,000 over 2025 and 2026. N2,637,467,432.10 / N100,000,000 = 26.37.

What this does not establish

What the 36 vouchers in Issue 3 paid for, who the contractors were and whether the goods or works were delivered. Whether NECO's own 2024 revenue budget provided for the payments, and which year's appropriation its response refers to; the 2022 Appropriation Act was not examined. The names of four of the six states owing fees, the amount each owes, and whether the N2,109,921,272.00 includes the Ebonyi philanthropist NECO says has overpaid by N2,403,000.00. Whether the OAGF letter OAGF/R&I/1808/11/252 of 15 May 2024, the bank statement or the contractor's NITDA clearance exist and say what NECO says; the audit does not describe them. Which figures the Public Accounts Committees will pursue on Issues 3, 6 and 7, and whether the committees have considered the queries. Whether the 2024 and 2025 NECO lines changed when those Acts were repealed and re-enacted. The ThisDay report of the Registrar's February 2026 remarks was not checked against a record. An audit query is not a finding of wrongdoing, and nothing here suggests that any person committed a crime.