ON Monday, the Senate challenged the acting Auditor General of the Federation, AuGF, Adolphus Aghughu, to focus on the financial activities of big revenue generation agencies rather than agencies with lower revenue.
Senator Mathew Urhoghide, the Chairman, Senate Public Affairs Committee said this during the 2021 budget defence of the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation.
He particularly asked the AuGF to ensure comprehensive auditing of the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, the Nigerian Ports Authority, and the Nigerian Maritime Administration, NIMASA and Safety Authority among others.
“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 watch list but you will focus on smaller agencies. That is what has been happening from 2015 to date,” he said.
According to the AuGF’s latest report which dates back to 2017, an estimated N17 billion was disbursed for the implementation of 32 projects in 17 states including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“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,” he said.
Urhoghide said his committee would carry out further works on what the AuGF was doing regarding the Bureau of Public Procurement.
“We are doing status enquiries on the Bureau of Public Procurement based on the Auditor General’s report in a bid 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 to see everything they have been collecting and how they’re spending it.
“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,” he concluded.
Amos Abba is a journalist with the International Center for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, who believes that courageous investigative reporting is the key to social justice and accountability in the society.