By Correspondent in Minna
The report of the Niger State Auditor-General has indicted Ministries Departments and Agencies of widespread sharp practices, ranging from financial missapropriation to extra-budgetary expenses.
Other areas of noticeable sharp practices, as contained in the report include; issuing payment vouchers without supporting documents, having outstanding payment vouchers, under-collection of revenues from MDAs and as well, discrepancies of salaries.
The Extra budgetary expenses report of the Niger State Auditor General (AG) on the accounts of the government of Niger state for December 31, 2019 also exposed discrepancies in MDAs’ purchase and repairs without receipts,coupled with unauthorized expenditures.
The report which was sent to the Niger State House of Assembly whose Committee on Public Accounts made a recommendations over, it also indicated that; many payments were made without expenditure details, payment vouchers not posted into cash books, revenue receipts not posted into cash books and weak Internal Control mechanism.
The report also noted with dismay that the majority of the MDAs in the state were analogue and did not have e-mail addresses while rarely respond to the queries of the Auditor-General on most of the noticeable administrative flaws.
The House Committee Chairman on Public Accounts, Hon. Yahaya Abdullahi (Agaie), commenting on the discoveries, said the report covered real issues involving major lapses, adding that the issues discovered were such that could affect the image of the state government before the public because of the quantum of funds involved.
Yahaya said, “Officers controlling state government spendings do not take seriously the use of vote book, a memorandum account book used for monitoring government expenditure, this gives rise to extra-budgetary expenses or misclassification of expenditure.”
Activities and practices of the MDAs, according to him,can affect transparency and accountability in governance, adding that observations contained under the Appropriation Audit revealed that the MDAs were loaded with negligence to nonadherence to financial instructions.
The Committee therefore recommended that any MDA discovered to have engaged in extra-budgetary expenses, financial malpractices and related sharp practices would henceforth be denied its overhead allowances for a certain period.
“Henceforth, any authorized excess on a sub-head must receive covering approval or refunded by the officer responsible for incurring it as provided in chapter 6, No. 06033 of the Niger State Financial Regulations Revised Edition 2017.
“In the case of unauthorized over expenditure by an MDA, such MDA will be denied its overhead cost for a certain period unless the necessary corrections are made,” he said.
He, however, warned the officers controlling all state government expenditure to adhere strictly to the use of vote books to monitor expenditures to guard against future extra-budgetary expenditure or misclassification of expenditure.
