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Economic Confidential,
August, 2009
NATIONAL
Auditors Raise Alarm over Politics on Post of new Auditor General
Public Service Auditors in the country have kicked against alleged
attempts by the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) to sideline
their members in the appointment of a new Auditor General for the
Federation (AGF).
Speaking under the aegis of Association of Public Service Auditors
of Nigeria (APSAN), the auditors said in Abuja that the action of
FCSC amounted to politicisation of the office and warned that it
would not augur well for transparency and good governance especially
because it could occasion a situation whereby politicians would
bring their cronies from outside government to perfect their
nefarious deeds.
The battle for supremacy between immediate past AGF Robert Ejenavi
and incumbent acting AGF Gabriel Ogunsina is seen as the reason
behind attempts to deny the latter’s confirmation as substantive AGF.
Comrade Samson Idoko, President of APSAN declared in Abuja that his
association viewed the action by the FCSC in excluding current
directors in the Office of the AGF for consideration as “an attempt
to politisize appointment into the highly sensitive office of the
Auditor-General for the Federation”.
According to him, his association’s major concern about the
development was that it could open the floodgate for government at
other tiers to appoint Auditors-General from outside the office of
the AGF in their various states.
“In the circumstance, there is the tendency that Auditors-General so
appointed in this manner would have lost the constitutional
independence to query and observe leakages in the expenditures by
the various states/local governments.
“The process may be subjected to abuse whereby state executives
would be tempted to appoint their Auditors-General from among their
loyalists who will not in any way be willing to embarrass the state
government by querying or exposing observed questionable
expenditures by the state.
“This is the simplest way of weakening the fight against corruption
in the public sector, as corrupt practices will continue to go
unexposed and unchecked. If that happens, the Federal Government,
through its own action, would have rendered the anti-corruption
campaign meaningless and ineffective,” Idoko stated.
He lamented that in excluding all the serving directors in the
Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAGF) from the
process of interviewing for the substantive job, the FCSC relied on
portion from the Audit Amendment Bill, which is still pending before
the National Assembly.
He then appealed to President Umaru Yar’Adua to “once again overrule
FCSC and appoint the next Auditor-General for the Federation from
existing directors who rose through the ranks with promotions from
FCSC”.
In the past prior to the appointment of Ejenavi, there was a bitter
struggle between him and Ogunsina. Tthis led to a situation whereby
Ejenavi allegedly vowed to stop Ogunsina from stepping into the
office.
Up to the last day of Ejeniavia in office, there were frantic
efforts to extend his stay pending the appointment of either another
director or an outsider as substantive AGF, a tendency rebuffed by
President Yar’Adua who dismissed the submissions of Secretary to the
Government of the Federation Yayale Ahmed and directed that the most
senior director (Ogunsina) take over immediately as acting AGF.
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