Senate will expose govt agencies refusing to account for public funds, says Lawan

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has said that the upper chamber will publish the names of government agencies that have refused to appear before the Public Accounts Committee to defend the interrogations of the Auditor-General for the Federation in the 2015 report.
Lawan made this known in his remarks after the Senate considered the report of the Committee on Public Accounts on the annual report of the Auditor-General for the Federation on the accounts of the Federation for the year ended 31st December, 2015.
According to the Senate President, any public official that refuses to account for public funds at their disposal must be shown the way out of office.
He said, “This is one of our major responsibilities as a parliament, to hold the executive to account.
“[And] whoever is given the responsibility and the trust of running any agency with public funds must be accountable to the parliament on behalf of the people.
“You have indicated a certain number of MDAs who failed to come to the committee after invitation, I want you to go through your documents – the invitation letters with reminders.
“This Senate will publish the names of these agencies for the public to know.
“This Senate will insist, any public servant or civil servant that is given public fund for public good and has questions to answer and refuse to appear to answer, should have no business being in government.
“Because all of us are supposed to be accountable to the people and, therefore, if someone feels that he is not going to be accountable, then that person has no business remaining in office.
“But I want to also say that, those who turned up to defend or explain the interrogations by the Auditor-General did the right thing and we must commend them for coming, whether they were able to convince the committee that the Auditor-General was not right or not. They appeared responsible and accountable.
“For those that have been able to convince the committee on the propriety of what they did, we commend them because they followed the proper accounting mechanisms established, probably by the office of the Accountant-General.”
Lawan lamented that most agencies of government have refused to comply with accounting systems put in place by the office of the Accountant-General.
According to him, this is largely responsible for fraudulent transactions by some Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government.”
Earlier, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, said findings showed that there were “consistent contravention of relevant Constitutional provisions and other Extant Laws by the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.”
According to the lawmaker, the late submission of annual financial statement is a violation of Section 49(1) and (2) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) 2007 and Section 85 (5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He disclosed that there were withdrawals of funds by the executive arm from Special Fund Accounts for purposes other than the objectives the funds were created, and without recourse to the National Assembly for authourisation, contrary to Section 80(4) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
Urhoghide further disclosed that there was absence of collaboration amongst the two key agencies involved in the management and superintending over of public funds – office of the Auditor-General and the Office of the Accountant-General.
He explained that the lack of cooperation between both offices poses a barrier to efficient, effective and transparent audit process of the nation’s Federation Account.