…demands immediate appointment of a substantive Auditor General
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas has called on the Federal Government to commit one percent of its annual budget to the office of the Auditor General of the Federation to ensure adequate oversight of 900 MDAs in the country.
Speaker Abbas who was represented by the Deputy Speaker of the House Representatives, Hon Benjamin Kalu made this revelation at the Unveiling of Public Accounts Committee, PAC of members of the 10th Assembly and Leadership Training, One-Day National Colloquium’ in Abuja on Monday.
TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) reports the speaker also demanded for the appointment of a substantive Auditor General to the Federation immediately.
Hear him: “The National Assembly is interested and committed to the office of the Auditor general. What’s adequate for that job to be done, fully well, is at least, one percent of the total budget of the federal Republic of Nigeria. That’s what that office needs if they must do the job and do it very well.
“We are committed as people with the power of the purse to review the budget of the Auditor general office, unless we don’t want about the 900 MDAs to be well over-sighted.
“As the civil society mentioned, most of these MDAs were not touched, and the issue is due to lack of adequate resources for the auditor general’s office to get the job done.
“We should not make them magicians, we should equip them to sufficiently to pursue the money of Nigeria so that the work of the National Assembly will be easier.
“The introduction of technology will help us become more transparent to document better and make the results coming out from our exercise more credible. The oversight function is going to make use of technology. So in no distant time, expect the launching and unveiling of what we call NASS Eyes.
“To do this also, the collaboration of the executive cannot be overstated, though we are three arms of government, we are one government pursuing one national objective. Objective of the renewed hope where revenues will be increased and leakages blocked.
“Let me mention that I heard the chairman’s request that the office of the accountant general make provision for a bus that will help the committee do their job.
“We want to maintain that in the spirit of doctrine of separation of powers and in need to be thorough in the exercise of our duty, investigating the work done by the accountant general, we will not be accepting that gift. Rather Nigerians should expect the House and senate to make sufficient budget that will be enough to provision for the committees such as yours
“I’m joining my voice to that of my brother, the chairman of PAC committee, we cannot afford to have an acting director or whatever nomenclature occupying that important position of auditor general.
“We urge Mr President to look into confirming the person who’s there or anybody of his choice to take up the role of Auditor general of this country, it will send the right signal that this government is ready to act in the interest of all Nigerians.
[Newsguru]