Members of the Senate Public Account Committee were shocked following the revelation that the Accountant General of the Federal unilaterally signed the 2019 financial statement of N26 trillion without then Finance Minister, Ahmed Zainab.
Ahmed Idris was the Accountant General of the Federation when the financial statement was signed without the Finance Minister.
The total Federal Government financial liabilities for 2019 was N26.2 trillion.
The shocking revelation came during consideration of 2019 nation’s financial statement submitted to the Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC) chaired by Senator Ahmed Wadada.
The report was submitted by the Auditor General of the Federation.
The query reads, “The Accountant -General of the Federation was the only officer of the Federal Government of Nigeria that signed the consolidated statement of financial position without indicating his FRC of Nigeria registration number, component that carries the approval of the CFS, contrary to the extant regulation and
“There was no signature with FRC of Nigeria registration number of the Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning on the Consolidated Statement of Financial Position.
“The above anomalies could be attributed to weakness in the internal control system in the consolidation process.”
The Chairman of the Committee who was disturbed about the issued raised in the Auditor General report asked the Accountant General of the Federation to respond to the allegation.
But, the Acting Accountant General of the Federation, Toyin Madein said she was not the AGF at the time of signing of the financial statement.
According to her, “I was not the Accountant General at the time of signing the financial statement.”
It was learnt that the reason for the introduction of co-signing of the financial statement was to ensure proper check .
It was also discovered that in 2018-2019, the Federal government migrated cash basis to actual basis.
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The standard for accrual account is that the Minister of Finance and the Accountant General should co-sign the Financial statement.
Rule 1 of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria
Paragraph 103 of the Financial Regulations (FR) states: “The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria had assigned to the Minister of Finance the responsibility for all financial business of the government of the Federation, while paragraph 105 of the FR empowers the Minister of Finance to issue from time to time financial regulations, which is of general applications to ministries, extra-ministerial offices and other arms of government.
By implication, the Honourable Minister of Finance in Nigeria is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on government financial matters.
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