Senate: No budget approval without audited accounts
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he said efcc is of the opinion that once they come for budget defence it amounts to submitting their audited reports. the efcc act itself says they have to submit their audited reports six months into the financial year1 the senate on wednesday said it would be forced to withhold budgetary approvals for any government agency and parastatalwhich failed to submit at least two previous years audited reports to the auditor-general of the federation agf1 the report indicated that at least 85 agencies of government including the bank of agriculture boa and the economic and financial crimes commission efcc had never submitted audited reports since their creation1 in adopting the report the senate issued a may 2018 deadline to all parastatals to submit audited reports in line with section 85 of the 1999 constitution1 according to urhoghide out of 447 agencies and parastatals only 40 have complied with the submission of the 2017 audit reports1 he said that the constitution mandated the agf to receive audited reports from the agencies and submit the same to the national assembly1 the lawmaker added that the agencies and parastatals should ensure that their accounts were audited by making use of the recommended auditors from the agf1 the decision followed the adoption of a report of the senate public accounts committee pac presented to the chamber by its chairman sen. matthew uroghide during plenary1 in his remarks the president of the senate dr bukola saraki condemned the development saying that the situation was unhelpful to the war against corruption1 he said imagine that out of 447 parastatals only 40 have complied with the 2017 audited reports. when they say we are not making much progress in the anti-corruption fight it is because of the fundamental issues they are right the foundation is still very weak1 if we have 447 parastatals and only 40 have sent their audited reports there is a serious problem. now we find out that the agencies that are even meant to supervise are part of those who have not sent in their audit reports1 now we have taken a resolution here today to say that unless the remaining agencies do that their budgets for 2018 is withheld1 therefore let us remember that when we are passing the 2018 budget the committees that are presenting the reports of the parastatals should please confirm to us whether they have complied with the auditors report1 in the meantime we will make sure that we also communicate to the secretary of the government of the federation sgf to ensure that all these parastatals get their accounts audited and submitted saraki said1