Constitute a body to audit our office, auditor-general tells reps panel

Adolphus Aghughu, auditor-general for the federation (AuGF), has asked the house of representatives committee on public accounts to set up a body to audit his office.

He said there was no organisation empowered to perform that responsibility.

Aghughu spoke on Wednesday when the house committee on public accounts, led by Wole Oke, its chairman, paid an oversight visit to the AuGF office headquarters in Abuja.

The lawmakers accused the AuGF office of reckless spending in the approved budgetary allocation for 2019 to 2021.

The committee faulted the financial reports which they said were not supported by vouchers and other relevant documents.

Oke queried the N1.9 million allegedly spent on the new clinic and an additional sum of N3.96 million spent on drugs and medical supplies as well as N7.72 million spent on medical consulting.

He said the AuGF office incurred the expenditure despite payment of N55.93 million as the Nigeria Health Insurance Scheme contribution as contained in the 2020 financial statement against N87.87 million NHIS contribution paid in 2019.

He then demanded the staff nominal roll of the office of the AuGF over an increase in the N1.98 billion personnel cost for 2019 to N1.99 billion appropriated in 2020, despite the depleting workforce and the request for 500 new staff.

The documents presented to the committee showed that out of the N984.23 million budget appropriated in 2019, the sum of N969.49 million was released for which training got a larger chunk of the released fund.

The reps committee further queried the sums of N120.3 million spent on international travels & transport (audit of foreign mission, consular offices & 20 defence attaches).

It also faulted the N40.71 million spent on local travels and transport (training), and the additional N286.88 million on local travels and transport, others (hqtrs/state branch office), additional N100,093,600 spent on local travels, as well as N35,710,812 spent on auditor-general’s annual conference without specifying the location and vouchers.

Querying the documents, Omowumi Ogunlola, a member of the committee, said: “We have a document prepared for us which is pre-emptive. We don’t have any evidence or proof of how the money here is being expended.

“We at the public account Committee have always insisted that MDAs call me with the evidence of their spending and expenditure.

“Is it because this is the auditor general’s office that they will just give to us these documents for us to see without any evidence of how the budget given to them is being expended?

“Secondly, this is the office of the auditor-general of the federation. You audit all the ministries, departments and agencies. Who audits this office? Which office is saddled with the responsibility of checkmating this office?

“We are not auditing them, but oversight them. So, who calls to order the recklessness of the financial spending of this office?”

In his reaction to Ogunlola’s submission, 

Aghughu took offence at the word, “recklessness”, describing it as “unpalatable”

“I want to observe that the words being used for this office by one of your members is not palatable. Words like recklessness by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation. I plead that the word does not apply to this office. We have core values which guide this office,” Aghughu said.

“Some of us are doing this work, putting our integrity to it. The parliament has the right to make a law on who audit this office. There is no law that has provided for this office to be audited and we object to it.

“This is oversight and there is no way I would have adequately prepared for the questions you will come here and ask. So, if it is evidence that you want, constitute an audit and we will make our records available for audit. It is not for me a auditor general to come here with all the evidence”.

On his part, Oke asked the AuGF to provide all supporting documents for all the expenditures incurred by his office since 2019 to date.

He also asked for relevant documents for the N72.56 million spent on insurance premiums in 2020.

Hence, the committee issued a 7-day ultimatum to the auditor-general to submit documentary evidence of all expenditures for the three years under review.