Ondo Assembly advocates trainings for LG accountants, DFAs on service-delivery
The Ondo State House of Assembly has called on office of the Auditor-General for Local Government to organise seminars for accountants and directors, finance and Administration( DFAs) for effective service delivery at the grassroots level .
The Chairman of the House’s Committee on Public Account, Mr Tunji Fabiyi, made the call on Monday in Akure during the public sitting on the audited reports of the auditor-general for local government on the account of the 18 local governments for year 2022.
Fabiyi hinted that the such training was necessary to enhance better performance of the senior local government officers in ensuring better service
He said that it would be worrisome that despite the government’s giant strides to make people at the grassroots better, poor service delivery should be a blockage.
The committee’s chairman explained that according to the constitution of Nigeria, the House of Assembly was empowered to audit the finances of the local government.
Fabiyi noted that the exercise was not meant to witch-hunt anybody but to ensure transparency and be accountable to public funds.
“ And the essence of it is to normalize whatever abnormality that might have happened in the bookkeeping of the local government.
“So nobody is witch-hunting anybody. Nobody is having hidden agenda towards that, other than for us to come here and do the needful,” he stated.
Also speaking, the Auditor- General for Local Government in the state, Mr Benson Atiaro, said that the report was delayed for submission due to some circumstances.
Atiaro asked the government to fund the office of the Auditor-General for Local Government for dependence.
“The dependence of the audit is highly dependent on the funding of the system.
“ It is not normal for auditor to be begging the clients to fund him. Hence, you can expect compromises in his activity.
“ On this note, we are begging the state governments to give the office an independent funding by implementing the 1 per cent proposal in the audit law,” he said.
He asked the state government to recruit more personnel to the office, stating that almost 14 staff of the office would retire in 20245.
Atiaro said that the report was better compared to previous audits.
“But thank God, because of the regular sitting of the House Public Account Committee on the audit report, looking at those areas of challenges that we found, there have been slight improvements on their performance.
“ Regarding 2022 account, it was considerably better than what we have been having in the past.
“In the past years, we have made a lot of complaints about their performances,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) freports that the exercise would last for three days
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