The National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO) has rejected suggestions that it failed to account for N33.75 billion disbursed under the National Cash Transfer Programme in 2023.

In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday, the Office maintained that it supplied reliance records detailing the payments to the Auditor-General’s Office.

The clarification followed an audit query over the disbursement of N33.751 billion to 3,295,207 beneficiaries during the 2023 financial year.

The Auditor-General for the Federation raised concerns about the audit team’s inability to independently verify the beneficiaries who received the funds and called for documentary evidence to establish that the payments were made to legitimate beneficiaries.

In its defence, the NCTO said the audit finding should not be interpreted as evidence that the funds were missing, diverted or misappropriated.

According to the office, the payments were made electronically through the programme’s payment platform to beneficiaries captured in the National Beneficiary Register and subjected to the required identification, validation and authorisation procedures.

The NCTO said its records showed that it forwarded the 2023 National Beneficiary Register to the audit team by email on April 18, 2025.

It also said its project accountant had documentary evidence, including email correspondence, showing that the Remita payment report the auditors requested was supplied.

The office therefore disputed any suggestion that it obstructed the audit or failed to provide records required to authenticate the transactions.

The controversy centres on auditors’ ability to reconcile the N33.751 billion disbursement with individual beneficiaries and establish an auditable trail from the programme’s beneficiary records to the actual payments.

NCTO explained that because millions of beneficiary records are maintained electronically, payment vouchers would not necessarily contain complete details of every beneficiary, as the electronic payment system and accompanying audit trail provide the relevant information.

It stressed that an audit query, in itself, does not amount to a finding of fraud or misappropriation, arguing that the issue should be resolved by reconciling the relevant electronic records.

The Auditor-General’s findings, however, raise broader questions about the adequacy of documentation and controls surrounding the government’s social protection payments, particularly where large-scale electronic transfers are involved.

The NCTO’s response effectively shifts the issue from whether the N33.75 billion was paid to whether the documentation supplied to the auditors was sufficient to independently establish who received the money, when they received it and through which payment channels.

The audit report had also raised other concerns involving the cash transfer programme, including payments allegedly made without adequate pre-payment or internal audit checks and transactions for which supporting payment vouchers were not produced.

The NCTO’s position is that the relevant records and explanations are available and that the audit observations should be considered alongside the programme’s electronic records.

The dispute is now likely to turn on whether the National Beneficiary Register, Remita payment records and other supporting documents can be independently reconciled to establish the complete audit trail for the N33.751 billion disbursement.

Audit queries are primarily meant to elicit explanations for expenses incurred in executing government business.

The issue is particularly significant because the National Cash Transfer Programme is one of the Federal Government‘s major social protection interventions, with the integrity of its beneficiary-selection and payment systems central to determining whether public funds reach the intended vulnerable households.