In a telephone conversation on Monday, an official from the Audit Office says the COVID-19 funds audit report has been submitted to the National Assembly since September 2020;
Curious, though, NASS decided to keep the information away from the public, as it concludes its investigations;
Meanwhile, previous audit reports for MDAs were published on the Audit Office website and then moved to the Nigerian legislators for sanctions and deliberations;
Civil Society and media organisations have called for proper accountability on spendings on over ₦30 billion COVID-19 funds.
#PTFCOVID19 during a Daily Press Briefing at the Conference Hall, Abuja. Source: Twitter/DigiCommsNG
Having submitted the COVID-19 funds’ audit to the National Assembly, the question remains, why has the office of the Auditor-General not availed it to the public?
Responding to Dataphyte’s query, an official who simply identified herself as Kewe said the Audit Office is currently facing challenges uploading the audit report to the website.
When probed further, she promised to make requests with her boss and get back.
“I have asked my Boss. The COVID-19 audit report cannot be made public for now.”
Ms Kewe said the agreement with the National Assembly (NASS) was that the report will not be released to the public.
Meanwhile, the office released the overall 2018 audit report on the website on December 23, 2020. And the hope was that the office would in like fashion release the first part of the COVID-19 funds audit. After all the former Auditor-General, Mr Anthony Mkpe Ayine hinted at it in a statement from October 2020.
“Hopefully, by next week, the first interim report should be published. The first interim report coming out would be from the commencement of when the Presidential Task Force, PTF, for COVID-19, was established, up till June 30, 2020.”
former Auditor-General, Anthony Mkpe Ayine
He said the report will cover between March to June 2020 from the commencement of the Presidential Task Force, PTF, for COVID-19. Subsequent audit reports on the subject would be released quarterly, according to the office.
“We have submitted the report to the National Assembly since December 2020,” an official said.
NASS confirms agreement with Auditor-General to conceal the audit report
Dataphyte did, however, confirm that NASS was in possession of the report, and sought clarity from the House.
In response, the Director of Information, National Assembly Abuja, Mr Rawlings Agada, said he cannot confirm the position now as NASS is still in recess.
Senator Aisagbonriodion Matthew Urhoghide (Edo South), Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, confirmed receipt of the report. He, however, described it as periodic checks and not an outright audit report.
When asked why he took the Senate a long time to start work on the audit, Senator Urhoghide said the process of getting the report down to the committee level takes a long time.
He also confirmed that they had an agreement with the Auditor-General not to reveal it to the public yet.
“Nobody is assertive about it (report) yet. It is just a query from the auditor general’s office. The Senate Committee will investigate the queries.
“When we finish our investigation, we will submit to the Senate based on the auditor’s recommendations, or the Senate can even take a different position on the matter.
Senator Urhoghide said the committee had invited some of the agencies to appear before it.
“We will resume on the 26th of January when we come back, we will start the investigation and agree on the date for MDAs to appear. Once we resume, certainly we start work on the COVID-19 audit report… and other reports,” he added.
Concealment of findings counterintuitive to fiscal transparency
So far, many civic organisations including Dataphyte have criticised this display of opacity. Already, the data for development outfit has detailed several instances of foul play with COVID-19 spending; so for the Audit Office to conceal its findings is counterintuitive to the ethos of fiscal transparency. Dataphyte’s investigation particularly highlighted discrepancies in COVID-19 emergency contracting. Likewise, the outfit outlined instances of blurred sums and overinflated prices from MDAs.
Moreover, NASS’ decision to withhold COVID-19 ‘periodic checks’ or audit is somewhat murky, given that it did not do this with previous audit reports for MDAs. One could insinuate their decision or indecision around the matter to mean corruption.
Civil Society calls for transparency on COVID-19 funds
Earlier, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project and Connected Development requisitioned the Audit Office for a breakdown of COVID-19 expenditure in September 2020. In response to the Freedom of Information (FOI) petition, Mr Idris revealed that between April 1 and July 31, 2020, the federal government had spent ₦30.5 billion of the ₦36.3 billion COVID-19 donations.
SERAP and CODE have since described this response as inadequate and further wrote back for a full description of the donation and spending. A step further, Mr Kolawole Oluwadare, the SERAP deputy director, told Dataphyte that the office is yet to reply with the details of COVID-19 funding and spendings.
“Our organisation and Connected Development (CODE) may decide to go to court soon. Most likely, that is what we intend to do.”
Mr Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP Deputy Director