The office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, AuGF, in its 2019 Annual Audit Report has indicted the management of the National Assembly over how it spent funds running into billions of naira.
Aghughu Adolphus, the AGF, in the audit queries uncovered how over N8.5 billion from the funds released to the National Assembly were expended within the period under review without evidence.
The report, submitted to the Clerk to the National Assembly in August this year as required by the constitution, said the monies under scrutiny were not backed by vouchers and retirement documents.
The audit report uncovered various infractions by the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the National Assembly Service Commission. The audit report is usually submitted to the National Assembly Public Accounts committees for investigation.
Daily Trust reports that for over a year, the Senate Public Accounts Committee has been investigating expenditures of federal government agencies from 2015 – 2018 based on a report by the Auditor- General for the Federation.
In June this year, the panel presented the report of its six months investigation on the Federation Account for the year 2015 to the plenary.
The committee’s Chairman, Senator Matthew Urhoghide (PDP, Edo), in his presentation, disclosed that 114 MDAs were queried in the 2015 audit report, out of which 59 had their queries sustained after the probe.
In the course of the investigation, Urhoghide said his panel observed across board, the incessant violation of extant rules by MDAs.
On several occasions, Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Senator Urhoghide had threatened erring MDAs with zero budgetary allocation.
However, the panel did not make public its findings on the audit queries raised against the spending of the National Assembly management, which manages the finances of the federal parliament.
Issues in Senate
The Auditor General’s report raised seven queries against the Senate’s financial records on issues bordering on unaudited payment vouchers, non-remittance of Value-Added Tax, VAT, and withholding tax, WHT, and non-remittance of recovered vehicle loans, among others.
The alleged financial infraction, according to the report, amounted to over three billion naira.
It said the sum of N219.6 million and N123.3 million as housing and vehicle loans, respectively, were deducted from senators’ salary arrears between July and December 2019.
In another query, the audit report said N176.2 million was deducted as Pay As You Earn, PAYE, from staff salaries; Value Added Tax, VAT, of N39.7 million from payment for services and withholding Tax, WHT, of N237.6 million from payment for services.
It, however, said there was no evidence to show that these amounts were remitted to the treasury and relevant tax authorities as required by law.
The report also said the sum of N1.7 billion was paid between February and December 2019 for the supply of vehicles and other office equipment through 17 payment vouchers but none of them was made available for audit examination.
According to the report, the sum of N657.7 million was paid for the supply of motor vehicles, motorcycles, and other office equipment through 16 payment vouchers between July and December 2019.
None of the payment vouchers, it said, was cleared by the Internal Audit before pay as required by extant regulations.
The sum of N423 million was paid for the supply of utility vehicles and production of the National Assembly logo between August and November 2019 from the capital account, the audit report showed.
It added that no relevant supporting documents were attached to the payment vouchers to facilitate the validation of the payment.
Similarly, the audit report queried the National Assembly Service Commission on issues related to unretired cash advances and non-remittance of 1% stamp duty on contracts, to the tune of N33.6 million.
It said the sum of N31.9 million was granted as personal cash advances to fifty-nine (59) staff and that there was no evidence of the retirement of the advances.
It also observed that N276.7 million from 12 payments vouchers was made to contractors and service providers from the project account of the Commission. It, however, said N2.7 million representing 1% Stamp Duties was not deducted.
Source: SaharaReporters
