By Ummi Ismaeel, Minna
Niger State House of Assembly (NSHA) has accused Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of engaging in sharp practices ranging from financial missapropriation and extra-budgetary expenses.
Other areas of noticeable sharp practices as contained in the report by the assembly included; issuing payment vouchers without supporting documents, having outstanding payment vouchers, under-collection of revenues from MDAs and as well, discrepancies of salaries.
Extra budgetary expenses report of the Niger State Auditor General (AG) on the accounts of the government of Niger State for the year that ended December 31, 2019 also exposed discrepancies MDAs’ purchase and repairs without receipts and unauthorized expenditures.
The report, which was sent to the Niger State House of Assembly, whose Committee on Public Accounts which they 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 mechanisms.
The Auditor General report also noted that the majority of the MDAs in Niger state were still analogue hence do not have e-mail addresses and thus 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 that the report covers real issues involving major MDAs and that the issues discovered are such that can 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 accounts book used for monitoring government expenditure and this give rise to extra-budgetary expenses or misclassification of expenditure”.
Activities and practices of the MDAs, according to him could affect transparency and accountability in governance as observations contained under the Appropriation Audit revealed that the MDAs are loaded with negligence to adherence to financial instructions.
The Committee therefore recommended that any MDAs discovered to be engaged in extra-budgetary expenses, financial malpractices and related sharp practices will henceforth be denied their overhead allowances for a certain period.
Accoring to him, “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”.
The law maker further cautioned that, “In the case of unauthorized over expenditure by an MDA, such MDA would be denied its overhead cost for a certain period, unless the necessary corrections were made”.
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.