HoR C’ttee blames weaknesses in nation’s auditing, accts system on corruption

By Tom Okpe

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, PAC, has blamed weaknesses in the nation’s auditing and accounting systems of enabling corruption in the country.

Chairman of the Committee, Rep Bamidele Salam stated this at the budget defence session with the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, oAGF, at the National Assembly, Abuja on Friday.

He noted that, the resultant pervasive corruption is depriving Government of much needed revenue to function and deliver, needed development in the country.

He said, “There are lot of monies that ought to accrue to Government that we are losing as a result of weaknesses in our accounting systems, weaknesses in auditing, general financial management architecture. This also, has reflected even in the budget performance of the Auditor General’s office.

“There are some of major agencies of Government that have not been well audited in the last couple of years. If you don’t audit properly, you are giving an indication that there is less attention on certain agencies and that may promote a lot of impunity in those Agencies’.

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“We decided, even though, the Auditor General has limitations because of budgetary constraints, because of personnel constraints, the office is mandated to audit almost 1,000 Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government, do periodic audits, appoint auditors for those that they are not going to audit directly.

“All this will require a lot of resources and manpower. We saw these gaps again in the presentation made today, and we are going to work as a parliament in cooperation with our sister Committees that directly oversight some of these Agencies’ in a manner that will make the work of the Auditor General, more impactful, to be more result-oriented.

“We believe strongly that if the Auditor General’s office is well-funded and staffed, cases of corruption will be minimized drastically in Nigeria.

“We will be preventing corruption rather than fighting corruption after it happens. And that is the direction that we are looking into.”

Rep Salam also decried the poor implementation of the Capital Component of the 2024 budget, which he said, has a negative effect on the overall governance system as well as development projections in the country.

“The implementation of the capital component of the 2024 budget has not been encouraging. We have expressed this observation when we had a meeting with the Accountant General of the Federation, about a week ago, that we think, there is a need for Government to work more on the revenue side of budgets in a manner that will make us less dependent on borrowing.

“The only way we can do that, the first of the options we have as a country, is to block loopholes,” he said.

The PAC Chairman also challenged the Auditor General to be up and doing in the submission of Annual reports which he said is crucial to the workings of the National Assembly, to keep the executive arm in check and ensure accountability.

In his presentation, the Auditor General of the Federation, Shaakaa Kanyitor Chira informed the Committee that, there are various challenges hindering operations of the office, noting that the office is grossly underfunded and understaffed, to discharge its enormous responsibilities resulting in late compilation and submission of the annual reports.

Chira however informed the Committee that with adequate funding and increased staff, the office will overcome the challenges, promising
that, “the office is on track to address the backlog of the reports for submission.”

Chira further stressed: “My commitment is to submit 2022 in the month of March. That is the one that has to do with the non-compliance,” he added.