Editorial
What exigencies would permit an agency of government mandated to ensure compliance with corporate governance and financial standards to shun due observance of the basic law on which public expenditures are anchored? That is the crux of the query served on the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, AuGF, as contained in its 2015 to 2018 report currently under scrutiny by both chambers of the federal legislature.
At issue is the N339,834,586.00 incurred as personnel cost by the FRC under its 2017 budget – an amount way above the approved sum of N81,245,107.00 by a whopping N258,589,479.00.
The AuGF would observe in its report on the issue: “This non-compliance with the Appropriation Act was due to the failure of the executive secretary to seek approval for supplementary budget from the appropriate authorities, that is, through the Ministry of Finance and National Assembly.”
The Executive Secretary of FRC, Daniel Asapokhai, was reported to have stated in his defence that the extra money spent was to augment the agency’s personnel cost for the fiscal year. In other words, that the sum of N81m appropriated was government subvention for personnel cost for the council. Specifically, he claimed that “The amount referenced by the auditors as over-expenditures not approved was staff salary funded via IGR which is contained in the approved budget.”
“The council”, he said, “customarily prepares its budget at the beginning of every year detailing both Internally Generated Revenue, and government subvention”, noting that “this is usually sent for approval before implementation”.
Aside being disingenuous, we see the response by the FRC boss as either meant to deflect/muddle up the issues, or worse, to mislead the National Assembly and Nigerians.
Flowing from that, a number of questions naturally beg for answers.
First, did the FRC at any point bring to the attention of the National Assembly as the approving authority, the fact that the entire personnel cost was actually N339,834,586? In other words, that the N81 million appropriation request was merely supplemental? Here, it seems to us a great irony that the council would have no qualms about keeping its own plan of spending N258,589,479 of its own IGR without reference to the National Assembly under the table, while seeking for additional N81 million in augmentation via the budget process.
Is the FRC boss in effect saying that his council could, on its own, incur additional personnel costs outside of the provisions made by the National Assembly as contained in the Appropriation Act? And could this be justified by the fact that it is coming from its IGR? Nigerians want to be informed on the relevant provisions of the law that support this.
Moreover, if the FRC has nothing to hide; or if the council isn’t to be accused of being clever by half, what is so especial in the emolument of the FRC personnel that could not have been fully captured in just one line of the budget sent to the National Assembly?
By now, the expectation is that all government agencies are by the Treasury Single Account (TSA) mandate, required to maintain a single account with the apex bank; was the FRC granted exemption?
The matter, as far as we can see, appears to be one of failure of the FRC to subject itself to the full dictates of the appropriation process. Whereas such disdain for the law appears to run through most MDAs, that it involves an agency charged with enforcing corporate governance makes it intolerable.
We urge the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly to expedite action on their investigation. If in the end it is established that laws were broken, Nigerians would expect to see appropriate sanctions meted to those involved.
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