SIR: Improving the effectiveness of Federal Audit Process and Reforms within the auditing system is a project that ought to be incorporated in the agenda of the Federal Government of Nigeria to intensify the efforts of the government in the fight against corruption. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) through its publication on the “Higher Decibels of Accountability: Delineating the Contours of Audit Reforms” proposed a good number of strategic means towards reforming the Federal Audit system in Nigeria.
Under the extant arrangement, there is no Audit Service Commission which ideally should be responsible for recruitment, promotion, discipline, pensions and benefits of audit staff. The Auditor-General for the Federation relies on another government department for its operations and this affects the constitutionally guaranteed independence of the Auditor-General for the Federation. As part of the reform issues and efforts captured in the 2016 Audit Report by the office of the Auditor-General for the federation, resource constraints and a lack of financial and operational independence had affected the quality of the audit function over decades.
Prior to 2015 the World Bank supported the Office through the ERGP7 to build the capacity of the Office. Through a MoU with the office, AFROSAI-E also provided technical support for the office in the form of training in Regularity, Financial, Performance and IT Audits. However, these interventions were not rigorously pursued and their impacts were not sustained. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) began supporting the OAuGF in the middle of 2015, mainly through targeted technical assistance and with the UK National Audit Office (NAO) as a delivery partner.
This support came out of an agreement between His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari and the then British Prime Minister David Cameron on the need for the UK to support Nigeria’s anticorruption effort. Six training visits were carried out by the NAO for the first two-year period of support which ended in December 2017. Early in 2017, DFID also increased the level of assistance to the OAuGF by engaging a new Technical Advisor to lead the reforms, and a Project Manager to provide support
The Federal Government through its Next-Level agenda should move the reform process of the OAuGF by giving assent to the Audit Service Commission Bill as soon as practicable to ensure transparency and accountability within the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government.
- Gregory T. Okere Esq. writes from Centre for Social Justice, Abuja.
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