Centre seeks Buhari’s assent to audit bill

THE Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a Non Governmental Organisation established to introduce professionalism in civil society work and to use social entrepreneurship to provide cutting edge services to enhance and deepen economic, social and political change has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to approve the audit bill by making it a an immediate response on audit queries.

The Executive Chairman of CSJ, Eze Onyekpere stated this yesterday at a press conference while giving the report of the fiscal governance tribunal.

According to him: “We are asking the President to assent to the audit bill or if he disagrees with its content, he should forward a new bill to the National Assembly, which should be passed as soon as possible.” “We should get to a stage where the National Assembly draws a list of priorities, give them accelerated hearing and pass them so that we can make progress,” he noted.

Onyekpere further said that the issue of audit has become an obligatory exercise in report writing, emphasizing on the need for audit queries to be responded to.

He said that late last year the centre, which held a fiscal governance tribunal across the country gave Nigerians the chance to express their views on the budgeting and physical systems.

His words: “We, contractors and service providers, communities where projects are located, civil society groups and organised labour, all came together and shared ideas and these have been documented in a small book called ‘Voices and Views.’

There were issues identified throughout the tribunal and recommendations where made, which if implemented will help to reposition the fiscal system for better productivity and improvement of livelihood in Nigeria,” he said.

Onyekpere said: “We noticed that plans and policies are not being implemented, particularly when a government leaves power, the next government starts with something new and in the process abandon what has been stated before. “We are saying that there should be continuation of plans and policies particularly those that are in the best interest of the country.

We also look at the abandonment of projects and we say that the full implementation of the Public Procurement Act is key and for that the President should inaugurate the National Council on Public Procurement,” he explained.