THE National Assembly was, yesterday, told that unsubstantiated balances amounting to N4.973 trillion were observed by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation in the audit carried out on consolidated financial statement of the Federal Government in 2019.
Speaking, yesterday, in Abuja while submitting the 2019 audit report to the Clerk to the National Assembly, Ojo Olatunde, Auditor-General for the Federation, Adolphus Aghughu, lamented that his office was incapacitated in so many ways from functioning effectively and efficiently as far as detection of mismanagement of public funds by Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, was concerned.
The Auditor-General said: “From the audit carried out on the 2019 Federal Government Consolidated Financial Statement, unsubstantiated balances amounting to N4.973 trillion were observed.
“The N4.973 trillion unsubstantiated balances are above the materiality level of N89.34 billion set for the audit.
“In auditing, materiality means not just a quantified amount, but the effect that amount will have in various contexts. During the auditing planning process, the auditor decides what the level of materiality will be, taking into account the entirety of the financial statements to be audited.
“Consequently, as submitted by the Auditor-General, required queries were issued against agencies found to be involved in the infractions.”
Aghughu told the National Assembly Clerk, who was represented by his deputy, Bala Yabani, that auditing of consolidated financial statement of the Federal Government on yearly basis would be expeditiously carried out as made available by the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
He said: “You will recall that on March 25 this year, Audit of Consolidated Financial Statement of the Federal Government for 2018 was submitted to this office for the required investigation of queries raised in it by the National Assembly. Just five months after, we are here again to make submission of the 2019 Audit Report.”
The Auditor-General lamented that his office was not working the way it should due to myriad of factors crippling its operations and invariably giving room for all forms of financial infractions across the various MDAs.
He said: “One of such problems is the absence of Federal Audit Service Law, which is a big challenge as far as effective and efficient public sector auditing is concerned.
“This is a law that is needed as basis of fiscal sustainability .Absence of it at the federal level is very worrisome, going by the fact that some of the states of the federation have the required law in place.
