National Assembly is working on a legislation that would strengthen the powers of the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation (AGF) to impose sanctions on agencies of government that spend funds without following financial regulations.
The House of Representatives has already passed a new audit law that provides for additional powers for the Auditor General’s Office, Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the House of Representatives, said on Monday.
But the law, which is seen to help President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption effort, will still go through Senate for concurrence, BusinessDay learnt.
Dogara was speaking in Abuja at the 13th annual governing board meeting of the African Organisation of English Speaking Supreme Audit Institutions.
He raised the concerns that corruption continues to thrive in Africa because the auditors lacked the necessary skills, competence and professionalism to effectively exercise appropriate control over government finance and expenditure.
“It is my pleasure to announce at this juncture that the Nigerian House of Representatives has only recently passes a new audit law to provide for additional powers to strengthen the Office of Auditor-General for the Federation.
“We sincerely hope and believe that this will give the Auditor-General added impetus for improved efficiency and effectiveness to deliver on this mandate,” Dogara stated at the meeting which had representatives of supreme audit institutions from 25 African English speaking countries had as its theme “Leadership driving action.”
Dogara futher assured that the lower chamber was committed to the processing, consideration and eventual implementation of the Auditor General’s report.
Dogara was of the view that the audit report of the auditor-general has become a major instrument of legislative oversight over activities of all organs of government as well as its ability to check corruption, and that there is need for the parliament to give the office more powers to enable it perform effectively.
As a step towards increasing the powers of the AGF, the speaker said the National Assembly would have to take another look at the constitution particularly section 85 which deals with the powers of the auditor-general.
“Government is building structures and strengthening legislations that will eliminate corruption and ensure prudent management of government resources for the benefit of all,” he stated.
“The era that government sat by and watched our common resources being plundered by those responsible for their custody is gone.
“The Nigerian constitution provides in section 85 on the appointment and activities of the auditor-general. We may need, however, as a parliament to take another look at the exceptions mentioned in section 85(3) and (4) of the constitution.”
Samuel Ukura, the AGF, in his address charged audit institutions in Africa to devise and implement appropriate methodologies to perform emerging audit in accordance with internationally recognised standards.
Ukura said it had become imperative to uplift the standards of auditing from the rudimentary level to a level of comparative effectiveness in the scrutiny and oversight of public resources.
He disclosed that his office, for instance, was already improving its audit process by embarking on reforms that had enabled it to take on other forms of audit such as performance, environmental, and forensic audit.
But some of the challenges facing public sector audit needed to be addressed in order to guarantee the reliability of financial reports, Ukura noted, calling for financial and administrative autonomy for the OAGF.
According to him, this would further guarantee auditors independence.
