Adeosun Calls For Transparency In Governance

Adeosun said this while speaking at the 46th Annual Accountants Conference organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), themed ‘Accountability Now Nigeria’ in Abuja on Tuesday.

She explained that the role of accountants is not just to proffer suggestions but also to join forces with the current administration to promote accountability and transparency in governance.

“When things go wrong in the private sector, it affects just one company, but when things go wrong in the public sector, it affects the whole nation and that is why we must raise the bar for public financial management,” the minister said.

“The days when ICAN stayed in the background are gone. That is why I’m challenging ICAN to move from the background to the forefront. We need more accountants at all tiers of government and I think they have a very big role to play.”

She said the ministry of finance recently started a capacity building project for the country’s accountants, which sees larger firms partner with small and medium scale firms in carrying out assignment.

“We need to build capacity within the smaller and medium-sized practices. In the Ministry of Finance, we have resolved that a large firm must partner with smaller firms for any assignment and the practice has started.”

The finance minister noted that the current administration is at the verge of implementing a set of robust public finances management policies, in a bid to enhance the nation’s public finance.

She stressed that a lot of lessons have been learnt from past mistakes, which necessitated the need to implement those policies.

“One of the things we have done since we came to the office was to ensure that our public finance management is better enhanced. We didn’t really have early warning signals from where we were headed. I think if we had better data, we wouldn’t be here today.”

“The Federal Government of Nigeria was one of the few countries without risk based independent internal audit. We started with the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit. On assuming office, we found there were little controls, no audit and no reconciliation. These are the basic tools for reconciling expenditure with payroll. As a, result, we found thousands of payroll entries of people who are not supposed to be there. We therefore have to move the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit into formal independent-risk based internal audit.

“We also set up the Efficiency Unit and I have to thank ICAN for its support. We have been able to drive down our costs considerably. The savings are creating head room clearly needed to be invested to fund capital projects which will grow the economy,” the Minister stated.

The conference was attended by dignitaries including the Vice President Mr Yemi Osinbajo, the Gombe State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, the Ogun State Governor Senator Ibikunle Amosun and former Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, among others.