The House of Representatives has directed the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation to furnish it with details of N 63.7 million miscellaneous provision in the 2019 budget proposal.
The House said it will study both the capital and recurrent expenditure in the budget consider the reality on ground before given approval and demanded for the accurate percentage of performance from the Office of Auditor General of the Federation and not the percentage of the utilization of releases.
The House of Representatives Public Account Committee stated this Wednesday during the budget defence by the Office of Auditor General of the Federation at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.
Public Account Committee led by Kingsley Chinda also queried the personnel cost of N1 billon, the N 31 million budgeted for the renovation of the Auditor General of the Federation Lagos Office in the 2019 budget proposal and the N 281.3 million for training in the 2018 budget.
Aggregating the various submissions, the Committee Chairman, Chinda said, “we do not expect to see what we see in other MDAs, garbage in garbage out in the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation. We expect that things that appear in your budget as far as the Public Account Committee is concerned are things that are actually needed because one of the cardinal points which guide you in your practice and Public Account Committee is the well being.
“All things you have in your budget will they add to efficiency, what values will they add to Nigerians. So we will not want to take what we see in other MDAs; a copy and paste budget will not be taken by Public Account Committee from the Office of the Auditor General regardless of the envelope that is given to you. You must sit down, look at the envelope that has been given to you indicate those items that are not immediately necessary to your Office and also indicate those that you need urgently for us to rejig it and ensure that you get the best out of the mega resources that is appropriated to your Office.
“Let us state that the war against corruption can not be fought without strengthening institutions in Nigeria and one of the institutions is Office of the Auditor General. We have consistently said and we are saying again, that the Office of the Auditor General is grossly underfunded and we can not expect to go back in this drive against corruption.
“The 8th Assembly has forwarded to Mr. President, the Audit Bill for passage into law and we use this opportunity to call on Mr. President to quickly assent to that Bill because that will bring Nigeria on the same platform with other nations where we will have the Office of the Auditor General that is fully independent so that the citizens of this country will get benefit from it.
“We have look at your budget and we will look at it for the second time and be rest assured that we will approve only things that are necessary and things that are not necessary will not be approved. You will find out that the envelope given to you is based on the report of the performance and receipts from the Federal government so you have graded yourself 99% and budget you have presented for 2019 is the same benchmark with the releases that is given to you.
“We want to get from you the accurate percentage of performance from the Office of Auditor General of the Federation, not the percentage of the utilization of releases. Before the budget is finally passed, we will look at the capital projects to ensure that the results you have is in tandem with what is on ground”.
Anthony Ayin, Auditor General of the Federation while responding to concerns raised by the Committee said, the miscellaneous provision covered cost of honorarium, postage and courier services, entertainment, among others.
Ayin explained that the personnel cost of N1 billon Naira was meant to take care of the planned recruitment of 969 new staff in 2019 while N31 million renovation of Lagos was because of the total dilapidation of the office which requires total overhaul.
