We will no longer accept hard copy reports from MDAs, says reps committee

The public accounts committee of the house of representatives, says the committee will no longer accept hard copies of annual reports from government ministries, departments and agencies.

Kingsley Chinda, chairman of the committee, made this known in Abuja at the public unveiling of the committee’s digital platform.

The platform was set up in collaboration with the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) of Nigeria to digitise the activities of the committee.

According to Chinda, consultants engaged by the committee has completely digitised all existing documents including reports and responses of 800 MDAs dating back to seven years.

“The incidence of improper documentation such as missing vouchers, tax receipts, contract papers and sometimes suspicious documents designed to mislead the committee were the hallmark of our experience in these years,” he said.

“Before this project, the PAC secretariat had only three functional computers, a handful of technical and support staff without requisite skills, lack of competences in report writing and poor modern tools such as computers and laptops to effectively and efficiently deliver their jobs.

“PAC now has fully-installed electronic document management and archiving facility.

“Henceforth, no hard copies of annual report submissions will be accepted from the MDAs; likewise all the MDAs will receive PAC’s submissions electronically and make their submissions through the newly-opened website for PAC.”

Idris Ahmed Wase, house of representatives majority leader, who represented Yakubu Dogara, the speaker of the house, said the system will go a long way to assist in the smooth operation of PAC.

According to him: “This great feat will certainly go a long way to simplify your operations, reduce task time and enhance the efficiency of the committee to engendering probity, transparency and accountability in our public sector”.

Daniel Asapokhai, FRC CEO, said the council was moved to support PAC after noting the difficulty the committee was going through in accessing physical documents submitted by MDAs, a situation that negatively affected its operation.

He said the new platform will save the MDAs money, cut down on paper usage and printing costs while bringing efficiency to PAC operations.