Reps Decry Late Submission Of Audit Reports

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Representatives has lamented the delay in the submission of audit reports by the auditor-general’s office, which affected its work.

This is just as the committee vowed to ensure timely submission of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 reports by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation (OAuGF).

The committee’s chairman, Hon. Bamidele Salam, stated this at a retreat held for members of the panel and its officials, as well as other stakeholders, held in Ghana over the weekend.

He said, “In 2023, when we took over, we had asked that our stakeholders, the Accountants General Federation, the Auditor General Federation, work together to ensure that we close the huge gap.

“Don’t forget that by the time we came on board, we had a 2019 report that was submitted.

After that, we were able to get 2020, 2021, and 2022. As good as that appears, it’s still not good enough because it’s 2026.

“As soon as we get back from this retreat, we will set a target to also convene a meeting of the Accountant General, Auditor General, Financial Reporting Council and other major stakeholders to set a definite timeline that will ramp up the submission of the report for 2023, 2024 and 2025. We do expect that before the end of this year, at least we’ll be able to close those gaps substantially.”

Salam said the retreat has provided a platform for introspection, a review of the performance of each and every person, both in their personal and official aspirations in the past year, and, more importantly, a platform to set an agenda for 2026.

He added, “We believe very strongly that an opportunity like this enables one to be focused. When you have a set of targets, a set of performance indices that you set for yourself at the beginning of a year, it gives you a roadmap so that as the year progresses, you can evaluate and see which of those targets you have met, which ones have not been met.

“If you need to also review your strategies for meeting those expectations. And then at the end of the year, it allows us to also have a very good evaluation of how the year has been. And the expectation that we have overall is that it will result in greater productivity for the work that we do as a department of the National Assembly”.

On his part, the deputy chairman of the committee, Hon. Jeremiah Umaru, said the panel, through the efforts of the chairman and members, has helped the government recover substantial revenue and block leakages in the year under review and in previous years.

“So in the year 2026, part of the reason why we’re here is to be able to see how we can efficiently and effectively drive this process more by engaging all the stakeholders. And of course, before we engage all the stakeholders, we need to come together in-house to build capacity among our staff and some of our members to ensure this process is done well.

“Because if you look at the leakages in the system, it’s mind-boggling, you know. So that’s the essence of us coming here. And with the kind of chairman that we have, I believe that, and with the cooperation of members, I believe that we’ll be able to achieve this as a committee,” he said.

Also speaking, Clerk of the Committee, Ogunsanya Titus, said the retreat was a positive move as regards the activities of the committee.

“A race that you prepare for will definitely turn out very well. What you did not prepare for will turn out to be a failure. So that is part of the retreat. That is for us to plan, to review what we have done in the past, see where we have achieved, where our challenge is, and how to move forward from there.

“So that is the main purpose of this retreat. And at the end of the retreat, I believe we will deliver good outputs and inputs to the success of the committee. It’s for the Public Accounts Committee and its Secretariat. It’s to set the agenda for 2026.

“So the staff can be prepared, they get the vision, you know, they brainstorm on strategy, then they get ready to deploy in the course of the year. The Public Accounts Committee is the only constitutional committee in the National Assembly because it is created by the Constitution, and its essence is to ensure that governance is achieved through prudent use of resources, proper allocation, proper utilisation, and that MDAs are held to account on how they’ve used taxpayers’ money, pretty much,” he added.

On his part, Consultant to the committee, Dr Samuel Ibrahim, stated that the training is critical to the panel and timely, as the topics were both hard and soft, helping with their technical skills and improving their soft skills.

“For the topics, you know, that focus on stakeholder management, for example, is a soft skill focus and is to build their capacity and their ability to engage with stakeholders to elicit information, to achieve their outcome through soft power as against hard power,” he added.