The Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Ahmed Idris, has said federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) who failed to submit audit reports on time will be sanctioned.
He gave the threat Wednesday during a virtual meeting with the Directors/Head of Internal Audit of MDAs.
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He told the auditors to put in their reports promptly as specified by FR 1706, which 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” respectively.
Idris noted that regrettably, “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, he said 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 said that the FG was committed to modernising the audit processes in Nigeria.
“It is in continuation of the audit modernization project that the audit monitoring department is organising this interactive/sensitization session to bring to the knowledge of all Internal Auditors about the IDEA software, since it is meant to be deployed service-wide.”
He said audit modernization is a key component of the Economic Reform and Governance Project.
“It is upgrading 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” he stated.