President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday vowed that the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation would be strengthened to boost his administration’s fight against corruption.
He stated this in Abuja while commissioning the new office complex of the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation.
The eight-storey building with about 240 rooms is located in the Central Business District of Abuja.
It is equipped with two giant 500KVA standby generators, water treatment plants with two boreholes, three elevators and three inverters to power the elevators in case of power failure.
Jonathan said the commissioning of the complex is a demonstration of his administration’s commitment to guarantee the independence of the auditor-general’s office.
This, according to him, would not only guarantee accountability in the management of the nation’s resources, but ensure that the fight against corruption is won.
He said if auditors performed their jobs efficiently, those institutions set up by the government to look at corruption cases would have less work to do.
Jonathan said: “An effective and efficient auditor general office will not only guarantee ccountability but will ensure that our fight against corruption is won.”
Earlier in his remarks, the Auditor General for the Federation, Mr Samuel Ukura while commending Jonathan for granting approval for the acquisition of the office complex, however, called for increase funding to the office.
He said the need for more funding was borne out of the increase in operational costs owing to new audit areas which are in line with international best practices.
The new audit areas according to him are performance audit, information technology audit, environmental audit, forensic audit, risk based audit, performance information audit and audit of over 100 foreign missions that are expected to be audit yearly.
