•Auditor-General’s report and its shocking can of worms
Nigerians may have become number-numbed by the sheer amount involved in some of the on-going investigations of corruption cases; there is however a lot to be said of the latest report of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF) as underlying the extensive subversion and rot of which our public institutions have become renowned.
In the 2014 audit report submitted to the National Assembly last week, the AGF, Samuel Ukura, gave a chilling detail of a string of irregular or fraudulent expenditures running into trillions of naira involving, notably, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), office of the former National Security Adviser, the National Assembly and the Nigeria Police.
High point of these is an alleged non-remittance of N3. 2trillion by the NNPC into the Federation Account, although other findings are no less revealing of impunity and fiscal brigandage among the players across the board.
Other highlights are the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) said to have transferred $235million being the accruals from the review of the NLNG Limited sales profile on gas to some undisclosed Escrow accounts rather than the Federation Account. There was a case of N36.4bn meant for the rehabilitation and construction of dams released to the office of the erstwhile National Security Adviser, retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki, instead of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources. Also cited was the curious N2.9bn spent on the procurement of hand sanitisers for schools and other public places in 2014; N31.3bn spent on subsidy on fertiliser and youth employment in agricultural programmes; the non accounting for the utilisation of N5.2bn direct deductions from Federal Government shares in respect of one percent Police Reward Fund; the N2.4bn on Group Life Assurance Premium for the Armed Forces; the non-disclosure of N180bn expenditure of Subsidy Re-investment Projects (Sure-P) in the consolidated development fund statement and the illegal withdrawals of N803m from the Ministry of Niger Delta account.
There was also the case of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington said to have realised internally generated revenue of $3.7m dollars between 2012 and March 2015 but spent the entire sum on sundry expenses; the National Assembly said to have spent a whopping N10.6bn without raising payment vouchers in flagrant violation of financial regulation 601, among others.
NNPC, the alleged chief culprit has, not surprisingly, rejected the report. It claims the reports were “erroneous”. While denying that the corporation owed the Federation Account N3.2 trillion, its group executive director and chief financial officer, Isiaka Abdulrazaq, claimed that “the declaration by the auditor-general may have been borne out of a misunderstanding of how revenues from crude oil and gas sales are remitted into the Federation Account”. He gave his own account of the figure owed as at January 2015 as N326,142,137,205.79 – a figure, he claimed is still being reconciled.
The issues are certainly weighty. Some of them, we daresay, are as controversial as they are long-standing and hence require some final, definitive resolution. The audit is therefore important both for the purposes of establishing the alleged infractions while presenting the nation a final opportunity to correct the anomalies in the system. Although late, it is certainly better than never.
As it is, the office of the auditor-general has done what it is required to do under the constitution. Next is for the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly to pick up the gauntlet, seek clarification on issues in contention where necessary, establish the infractions or infringement on procedures where they exist, and recommend appropriate sanctions as stipulated by extant rules and regulations. That done, it should be easier for the judiciary to do its part in bringing alleged offenders to justice.
Given that some of the brazen, flagrant violations of financial regulations and procedures themselves derive from failure of legislative oversight duties, should it therefore not cause the National Assembly to ask itself if indeed it could not have done better to prevent the abuses in the first place?
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