Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Public accounts has raised concerns over the non-auditing of the service-wide vote describing it as the biggest fraud in the country.
The service-wide vote is contingency fund in the national budget under the control of the Federal Ministry of Finance. In 2021, the federal government allocated N758 billion for service-wide vote.
Speaking at the confirmation hearing of Acting Auditor-General of Federation, Mr Aghughu Adolphus, the committee Chairman Senator Matthew Uhroghide described the fund as the biggest fraud because it is not audited.
“Service-wide vote is the biggest fraud in Nigeria. It is meant to meet unseen situation, nobody gives account on service-wide vote. Standing Committees of the Senate do not know anything about its spending,” he said.
Besides the service-wide vote, the Acting Auditor-General of the Federation also told the lawmakers that it lacks Constitutional power to audit Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and other big spenders among the government agencies.
The Nominee while responding on why the Auditor-General has been able to Audit such big spender said: ” for the big spender, it is the constitution that has an issue, by virtue of 1999 Constitution, we will just provide a list of what we need for them and they will make their choice, if they decline to give to us, we have no power to compel them.”
In his enumeration of the various challenges in the office, the Nominee solicited for the full autonomy of the office of the Auditor General of the Federation so that it can carry out its task effectively lamenting that lack of fund halted efforts of the agency to acquire some software that will aid their work because it was struck out of the budget.
He, however, said that the agency is currently discussing with some donor agencies to acquire the software.
Some Senators who spoke during the screening exercise expressed dissatisfaction with the poor funding of the Office of Auditor General of the Federation which is meant to tackle corruption.
The Chairman of the Committee specifically submitted that the National Assembly will ensure that no agency appears for budget defence without responding to issues raised in the report of Auditor General of the Federation.
Zainab Sa’id
