Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in Nigeria are presently under scrutiny of the Federal Government over the rising use of imprest and cash advances, reports thegazellenews.com.
MDAs are the bodies that implement government’s policies and programmes at various levels.
Imprest refers to a fixed amount of money issued to public officers to cover routine operational expenses, usually reimbursed quarterly, while cash advance denotes funds granted for specific administrative purposes or special projects, both of which must be retired with proper documentation in line with financial regulations.
FG commenced the scrutiny of the MDAs after fresh data revealed that over N2.27 billion was disbursed under these two expenditure categories in 2024 alone. This figure is a more than 308 per cent increase from the N556.3 million recorded in 2023.
The spending data released by GovSpend, a public finance monitoring platform operated by BudgIT, revealed that N1.19 billion was released for imprest and another N1.08 billion for cash advances in 2024. This likely prompted new financial directives from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation over the weekend.
