The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has faulted the Auditor-General of the Federation’s (AuGF’s) statement that the commission was one of 41 Federal Government’s agencies without an updated financial audit report.
NERC said contrary to the allegation of the AuGF, Mr. Samuel Orkura, its financial accounts had been consistently audited by the office of the AuGF since it was set up by the government in 2005, and that it had remitted N360 million to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as value added and withholding taxes collected on behalf of the service between 2006 and 2010.
In a statement by the Manager, Media Relations of the Commission, Mr. Mike Faloseyi, in Abuja, the Chairman of NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, gave a breakdown of the amount remitted during the period under review as N206.7 million for withholding tax and N153.6 million, value added tax.
“I believe the Auditor-General may have been quoted out of context. We have a good working relationship with the Auditor General’s Office as far back as 2005 when we started operations.
“The Commission has a copy of the AuGF’s Audit Reports 2006 to 2008 and that of external auditor up till 2009. We are awaiting the 2009 and 2010 Audit Reports that were completed by the AuGF’s office in March 2011 and as at the time he was quoted at the National Assembly as saying that the Commission was among the defaulting 41 agencies of the Federal Government; his staffs were with us auditing our books,” Amadi was quoted to have said.
The NERC boss explained that he wrote to the AuGF on January 31, 2011, when he assumed office at the Commission, to expand the scope of audit work to cover both capital and recurrent expenditures with effect from the last audit in 2009 to December 2010.
According to him, “As I indicated in my letter, the purpose of the request is to enable the Commission have a professional opinion of the AuGF on the state of affairs as to the reliability of the accounts and processes on both the capital and recurrent expenditures of the Commission.
“A good way of obstructing audit process is not by requesting for expansion of audit. The AuGF may have been quoted out of context and we are not interested in joining issues with a sister Federal Government agency, especially on this issue, we are up-to-date in our statutory reporting obligations, including quarterly reports to the National Assembly and the Presidency and we are guided by higher commitment to public integrity.”
Orkura said recently when he appeared before the House Committee on Public Accounts that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and some other agencies of government have not had their accounts audited since inception.
The AuGF also blamed the National Assembly for not acting on the audited accounts of the federation submitted to it since 1999, but, Amadi noted that NERC was aware of the need to guard its integrity jealously as the most valuable asset of any regulator, adding that a regulator should comply with reporting obligations especially as they relate to the integrity of public finance.
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