An accredited Civic Accountability Organisation (CAO), Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), has said 70 Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government cannot account for 20 per cent, representing N455 billion, of the 2019 budget.
The organisation, in its perusal of the 2019 Audit Report of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF), noted that while approved budgets for all 70 agencies examined amounted to N3.79 trillion, funds released to the MDAs in 2019 stood at N2.2 trillion.
“However, the sum of N455.14 billion (20.69 per cent of funds released in 2019) was not unaccounted for by these agencies,” PLSI said in the report.
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The report revealed that the Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, was unable to account for N17.7 billion; Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development could not account for N60.6 billion; Federal Ministry of Works and Housing was yet to account for N1.2 billion, while Anambra-Imo River Basin Development Authority, Owerri, could not account for N5.85 billion.
Others are: Bank of Agriculture, with N350 million; Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), with N516.5 million; Council for Legal Education (Nigeria Law School), with N4.4 billion;, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), with N275.6 million; Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), with N5.1 billion and 61 other agencies of government.
PLSI Executive Director Olusegun Elemo announced these revelations yesterday at a virtual media briefing to unveil their findings.
He explained that “a total of 394 audit issues, 603 risks on public finance management, 342 management responses and 1,528 audit recommendations” were deduced from the report.
The Executive Director regretted the failure of performance of 20 per cent of the 2019 budget, despite the revenue crisis the nation was facing and stressed the need for the Federal Government to block all leakages.
Elemo said, “It is sad that the Federal Government of Nigeria has, since 2015, refused to enact a new audit legal framework to strengthen the Office of the Audit-General for the Federation and enhance the fight against corruption which President Muhammadu Buhari is committed to.
The Buhari administration should cease relying on the 1956 Audit Ordinance Act and take a cue from subnational governments in the country, many of which enacted progressive audit legal frameworks between June and December 2021.
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“It is certainly not a ‘Herculean’ task, if leaders are committed to prudent management of public resources, especially in the face of persistent revenue shortfall and increasing debt burden.”
The executive director stressed the need to leverage the potency of public sector audit instruments to improve transparency and accountability in the management and utilisation of public funds across Nigeria.
He urged the National Assembly and its Committee on Public Accounts to ensure that everyone queried in the report of the AuGF are made to respond to such queries and also ensure that missing public funds are recovered and returned to government treasury.
