THE Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called for the enactment of new audit laws in Nigeria that will curb corruption and promote accountability in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the government.
The call was made during the presentation of a report by SERAP titled ‘Promoting Transparency and Accountability in Ministries, Department and Agencies in Nigeria’.
The report, based on the Auditor-General of the Federation’s report for 2018, was presented at a two-day interactive session organised by SERAP.
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Executive Director, Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI) Segun Elemo, who made the presentation, highlighted cross-cutting issues raised by SERAP from the 2018 report, including failure in remittance of revenue by MDAs, unretired advances and irregularities in payments and expenditure.
Others are the circumvention of procurement processes, store items not taken on store charge and irregularities in contract award, execution and payments in MDAs.
Elemo noted that the non-remittance of revenue was worsening the country’s financial situation.
“The total budget for these 79 agencies for 2018 was N2.1 trillion. Of that N2.1trn, N831 billion was released to these agencies. Of the N831 billion that was released, they could not account for N617bn. That is 74 per cent of the funds released to them. How do you expect development?
“If 74 per cent of funds released to agencies, they cannot account for it, how do you expect the budget to translate to development? How do you expect the projected outcomes that were planned during the budget activities to be realised?” he asked.
He noted that the lack of development in the country resulted from the absence of accountability by MDAs in the country and recommended enacting new audit laws as one of the ways by which these issues could be addressed.
“We have to enact a new audit law. The audit law we have today is from 1956, the pre-independence legal framework. It cannot deal with the challenges that we are facing today in terms of corruption and lack of accountability. And the audit law that was passed by the eighth assembly was not assented to by the president till today.
“The Constitution requires the president to write to the National Assembly when he is withholding assent and give reasons for withholding assent. But the president has not done that from January 2019 till date. And the National Assembly does not have the political will to override and veto the president’s assent in the best interest of the country and the people,” he added.
Elemo also called for the timely publication of audit reports adding that delays often gave room for corruption to thrive.
“The international best practices allow for 18 months maximum to release audit reports. It’s more than 19 months after the end of the financial year 2020. If we do not receive the report of the Auditor-General on time and allow citizens to look at it, civic organisations to review it, analyse it and engage anti-corruption agencies and oversight institutions, then how do we get to foster accountability?
“We have to deal with this issue of audit reports coming out on time or being inadequate and not comprehensive. Like I said, there are more than 1000 agencies, the Auditor-General is just focusing on 79 or 70. So what happens to the rest? They should go and sin no more?” he further asked.
Elemo also recommended more funding for the Auditor-General’s office to strengthen the fight against corruption in the country. He also noted that the Auditor-General must involve citizens in the auditing process.
“The Auditor-General of the Federation must involve citizens in its process, because that way, citizens are involved, civic organisations are involved and you are carrying the stakeholders community along,” he said.
Others who contributed to the conversation at the event suggested that MDAs that fail to account for funds appropriated be starved of further funding till they give account for monies received.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.