Mr. President, Please Assent Audit Bill

Mr. President, Please Assent Audit Bill

By Abdulsalam Mahmud,

There are several benefits to be derived by the time President
Muhammadu Buhari finally appends his signature to the “Federal
Audit Bill”, passed by the National Assembly (NASS).

The Eight (8th) Senate, had in May 2018, passed a Bill for the
establishment of the Federal Audit Service Commission, in line with
Mr. President government’s anti-corruption fight.

The Bill was read the third time and passed at a plenary session
presided over by then President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki.

The Senate mandated its leadership to engage the executive with
a view to getting Buhari to sign the Bill before the end of the 8th
NASS.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts (then),
Matthew Urhoghide, while presenting his report, said: “This Bill is
very important to the nation as passing it into law will form the
bedrock for fighting corruption, which is one of the cardinal
objectives of Mr President’s administration.

“It will empower the Office of the Auditor-General of the
Federation, who has the constitutional mandate of auditing all
accounts of the federation to nip corruption in the bud, ensure
transparency in government transactions.”

Urhoghide added: “The Bill will address acute manpower shortage,
existing in the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation and
bring it in tandem with supreme audit institutions and
international best practices, as obtained in other climes such as
South Africa, Ghana and the United Kingdom.”

The Audit Bill, for the records, was not new to the 8th Senate.
It was first passed by the House of Representatives on April 2016,
and transmitted to the Senate for concurrence.

The Senate passed the Bill on Thursday, March 1, 2018. But due
to disparities in the version passed by the two chambers, a
conference committee was set up to reconcile areas of
differences.

The Bill was eventually harmonized and passed by both chambers.
The harmonised copy was forwarded to Mr. President for assent on
January 8, 2019.

Sadly, the Audit Bill has since become orphaned, two year after
its passage by NASS. The Bill was prematurely ‘murdered’ by the
refusal of Mr. President to give it his assent.

The Bill, among other things, will greatly assist in blocking
revenue leakages and curtail corruption, when it finally becomes a
law.

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) such as Connected Development
(CODE), have always been in the vanguard of anti-corruption.

Specifically, CODE, in collaboration with OXFAM Novib, is
galvanizing Nigerians against corruption, through its various
advocacy programmes, one of which is massively mobilizing citizens
to support the entrenchment of an audit law.

It has since kick started an online campaign, soliciting
Nigerians to sign a petition, with a view to pressuring government
into assenting to the Audit Bill.

CODE, noted that the Office of the Auditor General for the
Federation (AuGF) plays a vital role in public financial management
and anti-corruption measures, especially by ensuring compliance
with financial rules and regulations and due process in public
expenditure.

It however, said that, currently, political interference and
Constitutional constraints have limited the independence and
functioning of the AuGF.

“The AuGF currently lacks the oversight powers to enforce its
mandate and there are no sanction measures against defaulting
bodies and persons in place. This results in gross financial
recklessness and public fund embezzlement that deprive the Nigerian
government and people of money needed for development, in sectors
such as health and education,” it added.

According to CODE, “the Office of the Attorney General of the
Federation (OAGF) reported that 65 MDAs had never submitted their
financial statements for audit since January 12, 2017 when he
assumed office.

“Furthermore, the 2017 Audit Report published by the Office of
Auditor General for the Federation had defaulting MDAs rising to
265, up from the 160 defiant ones in 2016.

“The AuGF report noted that as of April 2018, 109 agencies had
not submitted their financial statements beyond 2013, while 76
agencies last submitted for the 2010 financial year.”

While calling on President Buhari to assent to the Audit Bill,
the civil society body, said the passage of the Bill will be a
major feat in the fight against corruption, and would ensure that
MDAs submit their yearly audited financial accounts to the Auditor
General for the Federation.

Hence, preventing corruption, illicit financial flows, bribery,
abuse of public office/trust, money laundering and mismanagement of
public funds as reported in the Malabu/Dan Etete Case.

Similarly, both the Senate and House of Representatives Public
Account Committees, have insisted that the Audit Bill that was
passed in the 8th Assembly, which the President did not assent,
remains very sacrosanct and would be resuscitated by the 9th
Assembly.

The Chairman, Public Account Committee of the Senate, Sen.
Urhoghide and his House of Representatives counterpart, Hon. Busayo
Oluwole-Oke, who co-chaired a session of stakeholders on the Audit
Bill, said the 9th NASS will breathe a new life into the Bill and
ensure its passage again.

Both Sen. Urhoghide and Hon. Oluwole-Oke lamented that the
nation’s current audit practice does not meet the global best
practices, and that necessary reforms that would empower and enable
the office of the Auditor General of the Federation to function
optimally and efficiently are imperative.

They spoke at a 3-day Stakeholders Consultative/Technical
Session on the Audit Bill organised for members and staff of the
Senate, House of Representatives Public Account Committees, and the
Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAuGF) in Abuja,
last October.

Head, Technical Support, Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn
(PERL) Engaged Citizens (EC), Mr. John Mutu, who facilitated the
session explained that it was aimed at finding a common solution to
ensure that the Audit Bill succeeds in becoming a law.

Mutu explained that the main objective of the session is to
provide a platform for the National Assembly’s Public Account
Committees (NASS PACs), the Office of the Auditor-General of the
Federation (OAuGF) and the Presidency to reflect and review the
Audit Bill, so as to identify areas of concerns that prevented the
President from giving his assent to the Bill.

At the session, Urhoghide, noted: “We have to ensure proper
auditing of the spending of public money. If we strengthen the
office of the Auditor-General, it will block leakages and we will
save a lot of money and this will also check corruption
drastically”.

On his part, Oluwole-Oke, said if the Bill becomes law, it would
enable the Auditor General to carry out his duties very efficiently
and effectively.

“Unfortunately, the President withheld his assent even without
giving reasons. Now the Bill is dead constitutionally. But we shall
resuscitate it since our House rules give us provision to start
from where we stopped in the 8th Assembly,” he pointed out.

National Team Leader, Engaged Citizens Pillar (ECP) of DFID’s
Partnership to Engage Reform and Learn (PERL), Dr. Adiya Ode,
during the auspicious session, noted that having the audit law in
place would strengthen the Auditor General to perform his functions
well, and also send signal to corrupt people that they would be
exposed and prosecuted.

Experts and scholars in their various presentations during the
technical session, equally maintained that without the audit law in
place, it might be very difficult to achieve thorough auditing and
that the nation’s revenue would continue to leak, particularly in
the government agencies that generate revenue for the nation.

It is incontrovertible that the absence of an audit law has
given rise to impunity in the use of public resources in several
MDAs.

This is evidenced in the limitless numbers of probes conducted
on key agencies of government, which completely indicted them of
malpractices of different sorts.

The absence of proper auditing in the MDAs is also responsible
for the fusion of unwarranted projects in the budget of most MDAs.
Projects are not subjected to either procurement, financial or
performance audits.

It is therefore incumbent on the President Buhari-led
government, to activate every necessary mechanism that will bolster
its anti-graft fight.

The country direly needs a robust, and well- articulated audit
law that will not only guide accounting officers and other
responsible parties involved in the MDAs on the standard procedures
in the application of public fund, but will also encourage
performance in programmes and budgeting in the MDAs.

That is why Mr. President must once again, diligently re-scan
the Audit Bill, carefully identify grey areas in the current Bill,
and then facilitate the process for quick harmonization of the
perceived grey areas with NASS, before proceeding to sign the bill
into law.

Having a ‘progressive-defined’ audit law in place, will indeed
serve as an elixir for his government’s war against corruption.

*Mahmud, an Assistant Editor with PRNigeria^[1], wrote in from
Abuja.*