The Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris says his office has commenced a forensic audit of federal government’s agencies to access true state of their revenue generation.
He made this known in a statement signed by Kenechukwu Offie, his Chief Press Secretary, on Wednesday in Abuja.
The statement said Idris had engaged 18 professional Audit companies to undertake the Process Audit of the federal parastatals and agencies.
He said the audit process would cover 2010 to 2015, and would be completed in 18 months.
Idris said that the audit would also cover capital, personnel and overhead expenditures across all federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies, in order to enable the federal government take better decisions in view of the dwindling inflow of revenue.
He said the first phase of the assignment was divided into two categories and will involve 33 Agencies.
“Category A, comprises of eight agencies with a turnover of above N100 billion while category B involves 25 agencies with a turnover of below N100 billion”.
Some of the terms of reference given to the Audit firms as contained in the statement include:
“To review the sources of revenues accruing to the organisations and the effectiveness of revenue generation and accounting.
“Undertake a critical review of the financial statements of the organisations over the last five years, confirm the sources and quantum of funding received from Government, whether loans, subventions or grants and reconcile with treasury records.
“Study in detail the enabling laws establishing the organisations with a view to identifying possible constraints and areas of improvement.
“Determine the amount of remittances made to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) over the last five years in the form of operating surplus and revenue dividends.
“Determine the extent of compliance with extant regulations regarding the adequacy and regularity of remittances to the CRF.
“Identify all income and interest thereon and make adequate recommendations on the future management of the organisations,” he said.
Ahmed said the consultants were to establish the cost of operations and make appropriate recommendations to understand real personnel cost and cost associated with revenue collection or revenue sharing arrangement, adding that their activities would be closely monitored by experienced staff of the OAGF to ensure that “government gets value for money”.
The audit exercise follows accusation by the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, FRC, that revenue generating agencies were short-changing the government.
According to Victor Muruako, acting Chairman of FRC, many agencies under-declare their revenue, thereby failing to remit 80 per cent of their operating surplus into FG’s Consolidated Revenue Funds.