Buhari orders resolution of audit queries in 30 days

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Auditor-General of the Federation, (AGoF) to ensure that all outstanding audit queries are conclusively resolved within 30 days.

Besides, he also ordered that henceforth, all audit queries must be answered within 24 hours. The Presidential directives follow what is seen as Buhari’s displeasure on learning that audit queries have remained unanswered for long periods, sometimes running into years, under previous administrations.

Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media & Publicity), Malam Garba Shehu confirmed the directive in a statement yesterday in Abuja, stressed that President was irrevocably committed to tackling administrative and bureaucratic corruption head-on.

His words, “The era of impunity is gone. The President is taking the war on corruption to the civil service. He is not happy that standard operating procedures and financial regulations are no longer being observed, as they should. “President Buhari will ensure that public officials and civil servants in the service of the Federal Government pay a heavy price from now on for violating financial regulations or disregarding audit queries.”

He added that the President was determined to put an end to the present situation in which, rather than respond to legitimate audit queries, violators of financial regulations in the Federal Government resort to threatening, bribing or mounting other forms of social pressure on auditors. “On his watch, President Buhari wants to see firm action against those who violate extant financial regulations, not the prevarications and shenanigans that went on in the past in the form of endless probes and public inquiries,” the Presidential spokesman said