The Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita, has expressed support for current agitations for the speedy passage of the Audit Bill, stressing that an Audit Act will enable the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation (OAuGF) carry out its constitutional functions more efficiently.
Oyo-Ita made the call at the Audit House in Abuja when she led a peer-review delegation to understand and assess the operations and achievements of the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, (OAuGF), in line with its mandate.
She explained that an Audit Act would give the OAuGF the administrative and financial autonomy it requires to carry out its duties effectively and be at par with other audit institutions globally, adding that it it is not in the nation’s public finance interest for auditors to be resident with the entities that they audit.
The HoS explained: “The audit bill has gone quite far already. It is now being finalized by the National Assembly to go on to Mr. President for assent. It will be very good once this Act comes. Right now the Auditor- General’s office is just operating and being treated as another MDA or part of the government structure. They are not having enough teeth to carry out their functions effectively.
“The Auditor-General is trying very hard, especially with his team in the area of capacity development. You can see that in the last three years they have done a lot of trainings and they have engaged with a lot of development partners, especially the World Bank. Recall I also made a comment that we the auditees who receive the federal auditors are already witnessing improvement in their level of professionalism and interaction, when they go out for audit”, she maintained.
Oyo-Ita explained that the essence of the peer review was for groups of permanent secretaries headed by the Head of Service to visit other permanent secretaries in their offices to gain a deeper knowledge of the operations of the office viz-a-viz their mission and vision.
According to her, the forum also provided her office the opportunity to interact with the host and meet his other management team and of course the union to get to know their operations better.
She pointed out the visit also availed the opportunity “to make our own humble suggestions, give our advice, ask questions like we did today and this peer review has proved very useful for us in the service.”
Providing details on the operations of the OAuGF earlier, the Auditor-General for the Federation, Anthony MkpeAyine, said that Nigeria had no extant Audit Law and that the current set up of the OAuGF does not give it the functional independence that is required under international standards.
Ayine said administrative autonomy for the office would be achieved with the approval of the Audit Act, as the office will be responsible for administering its affairs in line with global best practices and the Lima Declaration of 1977, and that financial autonomy is equally necessary to ensure that finances of the Office are not hampered by bureaucratic bottlenecks which will affect the smooth running of its affairs.
He explained: “Over the years, the Office has been faced with insufficient funding pattern. At different times and venues, presentations have been made to convince the Budget Office on the need to consider the Office’s allocations outside the envelope system knowing fully well that the work of this Office covers the entire nation and over 116 Diplomatic Missions.
“In West Africa, Nigeria is one of the few still operating a non-functional independent Supreme Audit Institution (SAI), that is, a SAI that is only legally independent, but still largely dependent operationally and administratively”, the AuGF added.
On the accomplishments of the Office, Ayine said that his Office has witnessed noticeable increase in its staff strength from 1,457 in 2016 to 1714 at the beginning of 2018 with at least 65% of the total staff as professionals.
He disclosed that trainings in relevant areas like the financial and compliance auditing techniques, Accrual Basis IPSAS, IT Audit, Performance Audit and so on, were also being provided to equip staff in line with the Strategic Development Plan (2017-2022) of the Office.
According to him, four major IT Audits are underway in some areas that have generated lots of attention from Nigerians over the past few years, with significant amount of the fieldwork already done.
He listed the audits as including, Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information Systems (IPPIS) and Government Integrated Financial Management and Information Systems (GIFMIS).
