Missing $20 Billion: 'I Don’t Have Powers To Audit NNPC Accounts'
The Auditor-General of the Federation, Samuel Ukura, has said that the Constitution does not empower his office to conduct forensic audit of the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
* NNPC headquarters in Abuja
Ukura stated this on Thursday at the public hearing organised by the Senate Committee on Finance investigating the alleged unremitted funds by the NNPC into the Federation Account.
The chairman of the Committee, Ahmed Makarfi, had asked Mr. Ukura whether his office planned to carry out a forensic audit on the NNPC accounts as recently suggested by the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, going by the allegations of unremitted funds.
Responding, the auditor general said the Constitution forbids his office from carrying out forensic audit of statutory public corporations or commissions, including the NNPC.
In the response, the department said the Constitution has tied the AuGF’s hands against auditing the books and finances of the NNPC.
Though Section 85(2) of the 1999 Constitution empowers the OAuGF to audit the public accounts of the Federation and all offices and courts of the Federation, Section 85(3) prevents same for statutory agencies.
“Nothing in Subsection 85 (2) of this Section shall be construed as authorising the Auditor-General to audit the accounts of or appoint auditors for Government Statutory Corporations, Commissions, Authorities, Agencies, including all persons and bodies established by the Act of the National Assembly,” the constitution said.
Section 85(3) only authorises the OAuGF to “(a) provide such bodies with (i) a list of auditors qualified by them to be appointed as external auditors and from which the bodies shall appoint their external auditors,” while Section 85(4) also empowers the OAuGF “to conduct periodic checks on all these bodies, persons and agencies established by an Act of the National Assembly.”
Section 85(5) of the Constitution, however approves that the Auditor-General shall within 90 days of the receipt of the Accountant-General’s financial statement, submit a report to each Chamber of the National Assembly, for consideration by the relevant committee on public accounts.
Mr. Ukura said there were some staff of the audit office at the NNPC who carry out periodic checks on the books of the corporation.
“Out the 20 staff at the NNPC, 19 are Chartered Accountants, while one is Association of National Accountants of Nigeria, ANAN, certified. We have the capacity based on our resources. The team was trained by a team of charted accountants and we will provide the checklist on both the revenue generated and the expenditure of the NNPC,” Mr. Ukura said.
President Goodluck Jonathan in his last media chat in 2014 assured Nigerians that the accounts of the NNPC would be audited and details made known to the public as soon as possible.
Source: Legit.ng
