Audit N758Billion Service Wide Vote …Senate

The marching order was issued by the Senate panel headed by Senator Matthew Urhogide (PDP Edo South) as it screened the Presidential candidate for the position of Federation Auditor-General on Thursday.

The Senate ordered’s Aghughu Adolphus, Acting Auditor-General of the Federation, to conduct a thorough audit of approximately N758 billion spent on federal government expenditures as a Service Wide Vote in the last six years.

This was when the candidate was assigned by the Senate Panel to go after “high rollers” such as the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA), Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN), the Armed Forces, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ensure that their financial accounts are properly scrutinized.

Via its Committee on Public Accounts, the Senate observed that the Service Wide Vote, intended to cover capital and ongoing expense shortfalls, is the country’s primary source of fraud; stressed that no one has been willing to account for the allowance in the national budget since 2015.

“How do you ensure that their expenditure is accounted for by big spenders such as NPA, CBN, Armed Forces, NNPC”?

The Senate also requested Aghughu, who has been in office since October in an acting capacity, to also conduct a performance audit for value for money by all federal governments.

The panel observed that the lack of such an audit is why, with unfinished schemes spread all over the world, corruption has become widespread.

As regards the timely filing of annual audited accounts, the Senate panel acknowledged that delays by the Accountant General in submitting financial statements to the Auditor-General had always slowed down auditing procedures.

Given this, the Senate panel announced that it would press for an amendment to Section 85(7) to oblige the Accountant-General of the Federation to send its financial report to the Auditor-General’s office within 90 days.

Also, the Senate Panel urged the Acting Auditor-General to work closely with the National Assembly as mandated by the Constitution and to stop releasing his findings to any branch of the executive, as this would be a breach of the Constitution.