Accountant General Of The Federation Threatens Sanction Against MDAs Rejecting Treasury Staff

Accountant General 

The AGF, Mr. Idris Ahmed

The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Ahmed Idris has threatened to sanction Government  Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)  which are in the habit of rejecting Treasury Staff posted to them.

He warn them to desist from such or be ready to  face the consequences of their action which among other things will ultimately lead to such MDAs being denied access to the public payment platform manned by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

Mr. Idris gave this indication  in Abuja when he recieved in audience the managment team of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, (NASENI) led by the Acting Executive Vice Chiarman/ Chief Executive, Dr. Aliyu Maje Adanan.

In a statement signed by the Head of Press and Public Relations, Mr. Oise D. Johnson, the Accountant General wondered why some Agencies, who rely on the Accountant General of the Federation for releases of funds  to implement their plans and programmes  would in turn reject Treasury officers sent to them to help them manage their finances effectively.

Mr. Idris said: “The office of the Accountant-General of the Federation has been vested with the mandate of handling all payments and reciepts on behalf of Government. It should be noted that Treasury Staff have been specially  trained and equipped to perform these functions in MDAs inline with Financial Regulations and extant rules.

“The principle of transparency and accountability, which this administration stands for must be seen in practical terms and in line with international  best practices.

“Accordingly, these principles do not allow one to be a judge in his own case. It is the role of Treasury officers to manage the Finance and Accounts Departments as well as the Internal Audit Units in MDAs. As long as you recieve public funds from government, you must allow the Treasury  officers to manage operations of the system and application of the funds.”

He explained that Internal Auditors are sent to MDAs to ensure that funds are spent inline with laid down procedures and due processes, adding that the ability of the Internal Auditor  to perform his function as expected is predicted on his independence; which must be practical in the real sense of the word.

He stressed that “the Auditor cannot be said to be independent when he is employed by and paid by the same organisation, and this leads to compromise”.

 He therefore called on Heads/ Chief Executives of Government Agencies who do not have Treasury officers manning their Accounts and Internal Audit functions to reconsider their position and come forward to the Treasury for deployment of trained officers to manage their Accounts and Internal Audit departments  in line  with international  best practices.

Earlier, the Acting Executive Vice Chairman of NASENI, Dr. Adnan had extolled the  remarkable achievements of the Accountant General of the Federation since June 2015 when he was appointed.

Some of these achivements the Vice Chairman noted include improvement on the performance of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and subsequent saving of huge amount of money and its introduction to some states of the Federation,  enhancement of the interoperability of the Government Intergrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) with related Agencis and stakeholders for improved service delivery, and accomplishment of the Financial Module of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and setting the phase for the Human Resource Module to take off.

He called for the support of the Treasury to enable the office actualise their plans and programmes for the year.