The Imo State Government has vowed to recover N12.3bn said to be unaccounted for in the financial records of the Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, simply known as ISOPADEC.

The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, on Sunday, said the government would leave no stone unturned in its efforts to recover the money.

A forensic audit report was said to have revealed that N12.3bn could not be accounted for in ISOPADEC, just as it showed there were no projects to show for over N10bn used for execution of projects.

The interim forensic audit report was released by the Corporate Development and Assets Management Limited, which was inaugurated by the state government.

The report recommended that the state government should take steps for the recovery of the missing N12.272bn.

A breakdown of some of the findings of the audit, which covered 2007 to May 2020, showed that out of a total sum of N3.5bn of unexplained expenditure or online transfers of ISOPADEC funds to sundry payees from inception in 2007 to January 2020, N647m was spent between 2007 and May 2019, while the balance of almost N3bn was spent between June 2019 and January 2020.

Further details were that while only 44 transactions under the subhead of Unexplained Expenditure and Online Transfers were carried out in 12 years (2007 to 2018), 88 of such illegal transactions were carried out in less than eight months (June 2019 to January 2020).

In 2008, the commission spent N3.1bn; N1.7bn in 2009; N1.4bn in both 2012 and 2013; and N1bn in 2017.

The rest years from 2007 to 2018 were less than a billion naira. But between June 2019 to January 2020 alone (less than eight months), the commission spent N3.3bn.

 The report gave a breakdown of the unaccounted N12.272bn as comprising N9.611bn from statutory allocation; miscellaneous inflows of N2.203bn; N410.721m deductions and N48.1m gifts to staff. Emelumba said those behind the unexecuted contracts would be held accountable.