By Mosope Kehinde
Oyo State House of Assembly Committee on Public Account has challenged local government authorities in the state to be more thorough and follow due process in the handling of state finances.
Chairman, the Public Account Committee of the Assembly, Mr Rahman Olorunpoto gave the warning at the end of a one-week Legislative hearing on consideration of the Auditors-General’s reports on the account of local governments for the year 2021, and 2022.
Mr. Olorunpoto, who said the exercise was not to witch-hunt anyone but a due process to ensure accountability and transparency in public funds, said all the 33 local governments and LCDA principal officers were duly interrogated.
He said the report of the exercise would be submitted to the House during plenary which the 10th assembly will consider.
Mr. Olorunpoto said there were lots of avoidable errors in their papers, thereby calling for the need for capacity development, training and retraining, as well as ICT Empowerment for local government workers
“I want to tell you that there is no intention to witch-hunt, all that we’re trying to do is to ensure that our books are up to date. We also want to ensure that things are done properly. Apart from auditing figures, we also want to audit the process, we want to know what led to what, at what point paper A moved to the next office and through what means. We need to know that you’re working in line with the necessary processes.
“We have been mandated by the constitution to engage ministries, departments and agencies of the state and local government to review the auditor general’s reports
“Whatever we want to do, let’s do the right thing. We’re poised to score important points for accountability and transparency for this government. We want to be sure that we can boost of our records
The committee chairman, who hinted that the Assembly would work towards digital means of engaging the MDAs and LG authorities in future exercises, told the council chairmen to also go digital in record keeping.
“We have dealt with more than 500 documents hard copies in the last 5 days. This is not something that should continue. Our shelves are already filled up with documents, so we want to see how we can get them to go Digital. When they go Digital with documentation, they should also go digital with IGR collections, so we will be able to block leakages.
Speaking with newsmen, the ALGON Chairman, Mr Sikiru Sanda and his Ogo Oluwa LG counterpart, Mr. Oluwaseun Ojo expressed confidence that the exercise would rebirth the consciousness of elected and career officers at the local government levels to judiciously use and account for public funds
Our correspondent reports that other members of the Public Account Committee and representatives of the Auditor-General in the local governments were present at the review exercise.
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