Auditor General Probes Lawmakers on N 24 billion Expenditure

Lawmakers are to explain how N24.8bn  government funds they collected were spent, the Auditor-General of the Federation has said.

To make clarifications are 313 House of Representatives members who collected from the consolidated Revenue Funds N19.9bn in unretired personal advances.

Sixty-two senators are yet to retire N4.8bn personal advances.

The latest edition of the annual report of the Auditor General of the Federation on the accounts of the federation of Nigeria for the year ended 31st December, 2009 (which is the latest edition) said the anomaly was discovered during the examination of the accounts and other records maintained at the National Assembly.

The report states: “The audit of personal advance ledgers in the National Assembly for the period of January-December 2009 showed un-retired personal advances to the tune of N19, 957,083,404.63 standing against 313 Honourable Members of National Assembly, contrary to the provision of financial regulations.”

On the Senate, it states: “During the audit of personal advances records maintained at the National Assembly, Abuja, it was observed that un-retired personal advances to the tune of N4, 899,976426.75 were standing against 62 Senators, contrary to the provision of financial regulations which stipulates that an advance should be retired promptly on conclusion of the purpose for which the advance was granted.”

The report goes on: “The Clerk of the National Assembly has been requested to intensify efforts towards compliance with extant regulations or recover the outstanding advances from the affected Hon. Members and furnish me with relevant particulars for audit verification.”

The audit also indicted the management of the National Assembly on certain counts. “A total of 156 payment vouchers for amounts totaling N127, 549,686.37 paid under the recurrent expenditure and entered into the cash book between January-December, 2009 were not produced for examination.

“Similarly, 20 payment vouchers for amounts totaling N125, 549,681.27, which was disbursed under the capital expenditure between May and December, 2009 were still outstanding.

“The payment vouchers should be produced for examination, otherwise the disbursement of N127, 549,686.37 and N125, 549,681.27 cannot be accepted as proper and legitimate charges against public funds.

“During a recent audit verification of store items supplied to the House of Representatives stores, certain discrepancies were observed between the ledger balances and the physical balances of some items.

“A total of 904 store items valued at N27, 055,472.00 were not seen. This discrepancy between physical and ledger balances should be reconciled. Otherwise, the sum of N27.055.472.00 should be recovered from the store officers and details of recovery furnished to my office for audit verification.

“The issues raised have been communicated to the Clerk of the National Assembly and his reaction is still being awaited,” the Auditor-General said.

Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, Mr. Adeola Solomon Olamilekan,  said no one is above the law. He added that any member of the National Assembly found to have illegally spent funds or did not follow extant rules will have to face the penalty.

His words: “This committee is the first committee on Public Accounts that has brought the Management of the National Assembly before it to answer questions on the audit queries by the Auditor-General. They have come before the committee twice and where we were not satisfied with their explanations, we have asked for more documents.

“The same thing goes for the members of the Parliament; everyone must abide by financial regulations. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands.”