The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has blamed the dearth of personnel and gross underfunding of the office of the Auditor General for the Federation (OAuGF) for the high rate of corrupt practices in ministries, departments and agencies of government (MDAs).

Chaired by Mr. Bamidele Salam, the committee at the budget defence session with the Auditor General for the Federation, Shaakaa Kanyitor Chira, expressed concern that pervasive corruption is depriving the government of much-needed revenue to function and deliver the needed development in the country.

The Osun-born lawmaker maintained that government funds have been stolen due to weaknesses in our accounting, auditing, and general financial management architecture.

Stressing the need for the Auditor General to expand its coverage of MDAs to block leakages and boost revenue generation, he said it’s unfortunate that the OAuGF is mandated to audit almost 1,000 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of government, do periodic audits, and appoint auditors for those that they are not going to audit directly is being limited by personnel and budgetary constraints.

Salam pledged to work in concert with relevant committees of the House to make the work of the Auditor General to be more impactful and result-oriented.

“We believe very strongly that if the Auditor General’s office is well-funded if the Auditor General’s office is well-staffed, cases of corruption will be minimized drastically in Nigeria. We will be preventing corruption rather than fighting corruption after it happens. And that is the direction that we are looking into,” he stressed.

“The implementation of the capital component of the 2024 budget has not been encouraging. We have expressed this observation when we had a meeting with the accountant general of the federation about a week ago, that we think that there is a need for our government to work more on the revenue side of budgets in a manner that will make us less dependent on borrowing. And the only way we can do that, the first of the options we have as a country, is to block loopholes.”

The PAC Chairman also challenged the Auditor General to be up and doing in the submission of Annual reports which he said is crucial to the workings of the National Assembly to keep the executive arm in check and ensure accountability.

According to him, the Committee had observed that Nigeria was lagging behind countries like Kenya as their parliaments are far ahead in receiving audited financial reports.

Chira acknowledged that his office is grossly underfunded and understaffed to discharge its enormous responsibilities, resulting in late compilation and submission of the annual reports.

Chira, however, informed the committee that with adequate funding and increased staff, the office will overcome the challenges.

He promised the committee that the office is on track to address the backlog of the reports for submission.

“My commitment is to submit 2022 in the month of March. That’s the one that has to do with the non-compliance. That’s the domestic report. By the first week of March, I will submit the results and that’s all… to also give you the consolidated financial report by February, then by the end of March, I will do it,” he said.