Abuja – The National Assembly has pledged to strengthen the powers of the Office of the Auditor-General to enable it to impose sanctions on government agencies that spend funds without following financial regulations.
The Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, said this on Monday in Abuja at the 13th Annual Governing Board meeting of the African Organisation of English Speaking Supreme Audit Institutions.
The meeting, which had representatives of supreme audit institutions from 25 African English speaking countries had, as its theme “Leadership driving action”.
Dogara, represented by the Chariman, House Commitee on Public Accounts, Chinda Ogundu, said the audit reports of the auditor general had become a major instrument of legislative oversight over activities of government.
He said there was need to give the office more powers to enable it to perform effectively.
He said corruption continued to thrive in Africa due to auditors’ lack of the necessary skills, competence and professionalism to effectively exercise appropriate control over government finance and expenditure.
As a step towards increasing the powers of the AGF, the speaker said the National Assembly would have to take another look at the constitution particularly section 85 dealing with the powers of the auditor general.
“The section stipulates that the Auditor-General shall have power to conduct checks of all government statutory corporations, commissions, authorities, agencies, including all persons and bodies established by an Act of the National Assembly.”
“Government is building structures and strengthening legislations that will eliminate corruption and ensure prudent management of government resources for the benefit of all.
“The era that government sat by and watched our common resources being plundered by those responsible for their custody is gone.
“The House of Representatives is committed to processing, consideration and eventual implementation of the auditor general’s report.
“This is because the Auditor-General’s report is a major instrument of legislative oversight over activities of all organs of government,” he said.
Meanwhile the Auditor-General for the Federation, Mr Samuel Ukura, urged audit institutions in Africa to devise and implement appropriate methodologies to perform emerging audit in accordance with international standards.
He said it had become imperative to uplift the standards of auditing from the rudimentary level to a level of comparative effectiveness in the scrutiny and oversight of public resources.
He said his office had started improving the audit process by embarking on reforms that had enabled it to carry out other forms of audit such as performance, environmental and forensic audit.
He said some of the challenges facing public sector audit needed to be addressed,to guarantee the reliability of financial reports.
He cited some of the challenges as financial and human resource dependence on the government.
He canvassed for first line charge for the office of the Auditor-General at Federal, State and Local government level. (NAN)