2019 Audit report: No N4.9tr is missing – Auditor-General
The Auditor-General for the Federation (AuGF), Chief Adolphus Aghughu, yesterday said queries raised in the Auditor-General’s report on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) do not translate to missing money.
He stated that audit reports were meant to correct discrepancies in the financials of the MDAs but not to say that money is missing.
Aghughu who gave the clarification in a chat with newsmen in Lagos during the 46th Induction Ceremony of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) said the concern of the Muhammadu Buhari-led government is to increase internally generated revenue and ensure that such revenue was transparently accounted for by the collectors.
The AuGF who delivered a keynote address at the ceremony where 372 tax professionals were inducted however tasked the tax collectors to up their game and generate more money for the government to deliver more projects to impact on the citizens.
Asked to comment on the 2019 Auditor-General report and the alleged discovery of unsubstantiated balances of N4.9tr upon which the House of Representatives summoned some heads of ministries and agencies, he said, “I want to use this opportunity to disabuse your mind. When you have audit queries, audit queries in most cases do not translate to missing money in reference to the figures you are quoting.
“What we said was that you have some issues that you are not comfortable with. You will raise the issue with it, let the issue be clear. If for instance you have advances not retired, you just pick the figure and say fraud discovered. The reports are not like that.
“If you take the pains to read the report, you would discover that what you are reporting is quite different from what is in the report. I am not sure we reported that such money is missing. The papers may report that but that is not what is in the report,” he said.
President of CITN, Adesina Adedayo, said tax professionals were doing their best but they can still do better to generate more money for the government.
He said, “It is imperative that as tax professionals, we should support the government towards achieving a tax-driven economy. The onus is on us to attain this feat by being proactive in developing strategies for tax policy formulation and administration among others.”
Adedayo warned the new inductees “to eschew all acts of unethical practices, be prudent and accountable in all your dealings, especially in professional services rendered to your clients at various levels of engagement.”