Disturbed by the rot
and thriving corruption in the civil service, which has cost the country
trillions of naira, President Muhammadu Buhari has taken his anti-graft war to
the sector.
He has ordered that all outstanding audit queries which had
piled up over the years be resolved within the next 30 days.
Confirming the presidential directive, Senior Special
Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said
the unanswered audit queries sounded unsavoury to the President who, on hearing
it, expressed his displeasure.
An audit query is the request for an explanation by the
Auditor-General of the Federation over improprieties discovered in the
Accountant-General of the Federation’s report. The report is done quarterly.
By law (Civil Services Re-organization Decree No. 43 of
1988), the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation supervises the
accounts of federal
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari
and extra-ministerial department; collates, presents and
publishes statutory financial statements of account required by the Minister of
Finance; conducts routine and in-depth inspection of the books of accounts of
federal ministries and extra-ministerial department to ensure compliance with
rules, regulations, policies, and internal audit guides; investigates cases of
fraud, loss of funds, assets and store items and other financial malpractices
in ministries/extra-ministerial department; ensures revenue monitoring and
accounting; provides a system for the monitoring of the accounts of all
Ministries, Departments and Agencies and ensures timely submission of all
financial statements to the Auditor-General of the Federation.
If the Auditor-General is dissatisfied with the reports, he
issues queries. Audit queries are also used to check fraud as the ‘ghost
workers’ phenomenon.
Over time, an avalanche of these queries have not been
answered, a development that has created a huge tunnel for graft through
unaccounted expenditures, misappropriation and miscalculation of funds running
into trillions of naira. The measure is used to check unspent budgets, which
are expected to be returned to the treasury.
Following the disappointing manner the queries were handled,
President Buhari directed that any civil
servant who failed to answer audit queries within 24 hours, henceforth, would
face a disciplinary action.
These are part of the marching orders Buhari gave the
Auditor-General of the Federation, Vanguard gathered.
The orders followed the discovery of a plethora of
unanswered audit queries which spanned a long period of time, running into
years, under previous administrations.
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