FG Threatens To Sanction MDAs In Breach Of Financial Regulations

The Federal Government has threatened to sanction any Ministry, Department or Agency of government that is in breach of the provisions of Financial Regulations that deals with submission of audit reports.

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Alh Ahmed Idris, gave the warning on Wednesday in Abuja at the virtual meeting with Directors/Heads of Internal Audit of MDAs.

He reiterated the need for Auditors to put in their reports promptly as and when due as specified by Financial Regulations 1706.

The provisions of FR 1706 states that “The Internal Auditor shall produce monthly, quarterly and half-yearly reports for the Accounting Officer on the progress of the audit with copies to the Accountant-General of the Federation and Auditor-General for the Federation.”

Ahmed regretted that this aspect of the law has been observed in the breach by most MDAs, noting that going forward, sanction would be meted out to violators of this provision.

He said, “It has been observed that most MDAs are behind in their reports while others have wilfully refused to render these reports which are clear violation of the provision of the Financial Regulations.

“Consequently, may I inform you that refusal to forward these reports by any MDA forthwith would be regarded as an attempt to undermine the authority of the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Head of Internal Audit of such defaulting MDA(s) will be duly sanctioned.”

He expressed joy on the successes so far recorded in the modernisation of the Internal Audit functions in the Public Sector.

He gave areas where progress have been made to include trainings of Audit Monitoring Department staff to assist in training other Internal Auditors on Computer Assisted Audit Techniques; and the establishment of an audit data capturing centre with a view to securing an interface with the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System and GIFMIS Platforms through which transaction can be viewed online-real-time.

In order to effectively implement this initiative, he said 20 laptops and 20 desktops computers have being acquired while approval has also being granted for the acquisition of five Interactive Data Extract Analysis software Licences that would be used by the Audit Monitoring Department and deployed to some Pilot Agencies that indicate interest to acquire the software.

The IDEA software is a computer based file interrogation tool that can be used by numerous individuals and organisations including auditors, accountants, investigators and Informationn Technology staff.

It analyses data in multiple ways and allows for extraction, sampling and manipulation of data in order to identify errors, problems, specific issues and trends.

The AGF expressed optimism that the Audit Modernisation Project would help to upgrade the level of audit from current practices to a level where audits are conducted in line with international best practices, using modern approach and information and communication technologies.

“I have no doubt that the deployment of the IDEA software would enhance and optimise the internal control environment.

” I encourage all MDAs concerned to key into this project by acquiring this software so as to speed-up the Internal Audit functions Modernization,” he added.