The “voice mail syndrome’’ is the tendency for a serious issue to be swept under the carpet. With respect to the 2016 audit report, which happens to be the latest submitted by the Auditor General for the Federation, Mr. Anthony Ayine, to the National Assembly on Thursday, June 21, 2018, what fate awaits it? This is one question on the lips of not a few Nigerians who are concerned about the fact that previous reports appeared to have “entered voice mail”, to borrow a popular Nigerian slang. Indeed, several reports by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation to the National Assembly never saw the light of the day.
Sometime in December 2015, at a two-day retreat in Abuja organised by the Office of the AuGF and Public Accounts Committees in partnership with the Department for International Development, the then Auditor General for the Federation, Samuel Ukura, made a shocking disclosure: “Since 1999, we have submitted 14 annual reports to the Public Accounts Committees. Yes! They have considered them at the committee level but those reports have not been passed to the plenary session let alone passed to the executive for implementation”. Extant laws of the land require that an audit report from the Auditor General be sent to the National Assembly through the Public Accounts Committees. The committees are expected to work on the report and present the same at plenary for consideration after which it is forwarded to the President for execution. Sadly, this has not been the case several years after the country returned to civil rule.
The first thing to be alarmed about is the fact that the latest report of the AuGF is far behind schedule. A few months to the end of 2018, what has just been forwarded to the National Assembly is the 2016 report when the AuGF should be putting finishing touches to the 2017 report. Section 85(5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) requires the Accountant-General of the Federation to prepare and forward Annual Financial Statements to the AuGF who is expected to submit an Audit Report on them to the National Assembly within 90 days of the receipt of the Financial Statements from the AGF. The preparation and submission of the Financial Statements by the AGF to the AuGF is also in line with the provisions of the Finance (Control and Management) Act, Cap 144 LFN 1990.
Instructively, these provisions have been observed in the breach over the years. The AuGF put the blame for non-compliance squarely on the doorsteps of the AGF contending that the Office of the AuGF was constrained to submit the 2016 report several months late “due to delays in the preparation and submission of Financial Statements by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.” This would not be the first time. The 2015 audit report of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government was not submitted to the National Assembly until June 2017. In it, the OAGF was equally blamed for delays that kept the submission behind schedule for several months. More specifically, “the OAGF failed to produce for audit, vital documents needed to audit the IPPIS operations transactions account between January 1 and December 31, 2015.”
As disclosed in the 2016 audit report, poor compliance by the MDAs to extant audit laws on submission of accounts has not helped matters. According to the AuGF, “most of the government corporations, companies and commissions have not submitted their audited accounts for 2016 to me. Only 51 audited financial statements for 2016 and 149 for 2015 have been submitted to my Office as of December 27, 2017, despite the provision of the Financial Regulation 3210(v) which enjoins the Chief Executive Officers of these bodies to submit both the Audited Accounts and Management Report to me not later than the 31st May of the following year.”
The weighty issues raised in the 743-page 2016 AuGF report should bug any government implementing financial reforms in the public sector. From several “observed discrepancies” in financial statements submitted by the OAGF to poor book keeping practices especially in the petroleum sector where accounting and transparency issues left much to be desired including illegal withdrawal of funds and their subsequent diversion to unauthorised use are matters that should be addressed squarely.
At another level, the report identified poor funding as a major impediment to achieving the statutory mandates of the OAuGF noting that “the present funding levels make it very difficult to fulfil my constitutional mandate and cover the full range of governance issues to the satisfaction of all key stakeholders.” It goes without saying that the importance of adequate resources for the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation cannot be over-emphasised in a country waging a war against corruption. The basic function of the auditor-general is the protection of public interest through a detailed and objective examination of public accounts and timely reporting to the legislature to enable it effectively perform its oversight function. This task presupposes a well-resourced office. Inadequate funding of the OAuGF has attracted poor ranking for Nigeria in the Open Budget Index over the years. In addition to evaluating the opportunities for public participation in national budget decision-making, the Open Budget Survey conducted by the International Budget Partnership, also examines the role of formal oversight institutions such as supreme audit institutions and legislatures. The IBP considers countries scoring above 60 on oversight as providing adequate oversight practices. The 2017 survey found that “the legislature and supreme audit institution in Nigeria provide limited oversight of the budget (56/100)” unlike in South Africa where adequate oversight of the budget (85 out of 100) is provided. The report recommended that Nigeria should ensure that “the supreme audit institution has adequate funding to perform its duties as determined by an independent body such as the legislature or judiciary”.
It goes without saying that in order to overcome the intractable challenge of the voice mail syndrome, a lot of premium should be placed on compliance with the relevant laws especially in relation to transparency and timely reporting by both the OAG and the OAuGF. Stringent sanctions on Chief Executives of defaulting agencies should be applied to discourage flagrant violation of statutory financial reporting obligations by agencies of the government. Equally vital is the need to fast-track the already passed Audit Bill into law by transmitting a harmonised copy to the President for his assent in order to guarantee true independence of the audit institution. The OAuGF cannot be said to be supreme if it is not independent. This explains why in a country like Canada, the Auditor General is an Officer of Parliament who carries out work on behalf of Parliament and is accountable to Parliament.
In the overall interest of the current anti-graft war, it is crucial that the National Assembly undertakes speedy consideration of PACs’ recommendations on all outstanding AuGF’s reports before it and subsequently transmit the same to the Executive arm of government for implementation. It is high time the legislators broke the jinx and freed the Auditor General’s reports from the voice mail syndrome.
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