Senate says auditor – general’s office designed to fail

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

The Senate has lamented the failure of the office of the auditor -general of the federation to exert its constitutional responsibilities due to its neglect by the federal government, declaring that the office was designed to fail.

It accused the federal government of allowing other agencies of government to usurp the statutory roles of the auditor general, thereby making the office redundant and less catered for financially.

This was as the Senate faulted the auditor general’s accusation of the National Assembly for not concluding works on audit reports submitted by it since 1999.

Responding to the allegation, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Sen. Mathew Urhoghide said the committee was not constituted to consider audit reports alone, but has varied functions which it has been carrying out effectively.

Rather than castigating the parliament, the lawmaker said the auditor general has not been steadfast in the submission of his audited reports.

Sen. Urhogide said that “he is using the reports of the external auditors to the various agencies to write his own reports. The auditor-general has done nothing to query the use of one particular external auditor by an agency for more than 10 years.

“When the auditor general came for his budget defence, I told him that the fact that we have not conducted hearings on his queries does not mean that he should not bring audit reports. We have not received audit report for 2016.

“The auditor general resumed office in 2017. Since he came, he has not submitted any audit report to the National Assembly. He is even supposed to be concluding works on 2018 because the law says that it must be submitted six months into the new financial year.

“This is the fourth month. By the time we get to June end, he is expected to submit audit report for 2018. He doesn’t have the competent manpower to conduct audit.

“Our committee is not set up to consider audit reports alone. We have a lot of motions that we moved, we have submitted reports on status enquiries of those whose audited accounts have been submitted,” he stated.

He however, regretted that President Buhari has failed to assent to the Federal Audit Bill that was passed by the National Assembly, otherwise, there would have been serious repercussions for defaulters, adding that the bill proposed the establishment of the Federal Audit Commission.