The Senate Public Affairs has ordered a comprehensive audit of financial activities of high revenue-generating agencies.
Senator Mathew Urhoghide (Edo South), Chairman, Senate Public Affairs Committee, has directed Adolphus Aghughu, the acting Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF) to carry out an account audit on the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Authority (NIMASA) and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), among others.
The Chairman of the Senate Public Affairs Committee expressed dissatisfaction as high revenue-generating agencies were being neglected in the comprehensive audit exercise, while the less revenue-generating agencies were the ones being scrutinized.
The Senator in his statement said, ‘You claim that you are auditing the account of the federation and you won’t touch the accounts of the NNPC, NPA, NIMASA among others.
‘You will remove all the big spenders from your watchlist but you will focus on smaller agencies. That is what has been happening from 2015 till date.’
He stated further that, ‘We don’t want to be seeing these smaller agencies of government that you are focusing on because they can’t settle well. We are tired of seeing audit queries involving municipal councils, leaving behind the big agencies.’
Senator Urhoghide disclosed that his committee would carry out further legislative works on the steps taken by the AuGF as regards the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP):
‘We are doing status inquiries on the Bureau of Public Procurement based on the Auditor General’s report. We want to expand the scope. We want to look at their revenue and expenditure profile. We will look at the budget, particularly the Internally Generated Revenue.
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‘We have asked the secretariat to write to them and invite them. The indictment of the Auditor General is correct. They could not even defend the queries issued against them by the Auditor General.’
The Senator also urged the AuGF to take-charge by making strategic moves, and not wait till corrupt practices raise its ugly head before taking action. He implored the AuGF to manage and put an end to internal conflicts that could affect and hamper the smooth and effective running of the operations as negligence to diligently address this issue may lead to the forfeiture of the AuGF position.
Adenike Omosanya
Photo Credit: Punch Newspapers