I’m yet to reach my desired level in fight against corruption – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has stated that he was yet to attain his
desired level in the fight against corruption.

The President stated this through the Head of Civil Service of the Federation,
Winifred Oyo-Ita, at the Conference of Auditors-General in Nigeria in Abuja.

According to him, the current administration had introduced several
different initiatives, especially in the financial and management
sector aimed at stemming the tide of corruption.

He said, "At the inception of this administration, three cardinal
goals were set: these are security, fight against corruption and
revamping of the economy.

"Three and the half years down the life of this administration, I am
pleased to report that tremendous achievement has been recorded in all
three areas.

"I will say, however, that the desired level in the fight against
corruption is yet to be attained.

"Despite this continued effort on the part of government, gap still
remained to be closed, especially in the area of external auditing."

He identified some of the initiatives to include: the treasury single
account, which have tremendously reduced leakages in the system, as
well as the Presidential initiative on Continuous Audit, PICA.

He said, "PICA have the mandate to validate controls, assess risk,
probe a small cost, ensure compliance with public financial management
refunds, detect errors and make recommendations to management for
necessary actions.

"Recently, I approve several sweeping reforms in the public finance
sector so as to further reduce waste and drive up revenue.

"This reforms include performance monitoring, that will set financial
indicators and targets for revenue generating for government owned
enterprises; new measures for expenditure controls, budgeting and
financial reporting requirement."

Buhari further stated that, henceforth, the account of
government-owned enterprises shall be audited within the period of
four months after the end of each financial year, adding that the role
to be played by auditors-general in the success of this new reforms
can, therefore, not be over-emphasised.

His words, "Let me challenge you all to think about how progress
should be measured and I look forward to this as part of the outcome
of your deliberations.

"The Sustainable Development Goals, SDG, adopted by all United
Nations' member state, is a universal call to action to end poverty
and protect the planet and ensure that all, people enjoy peace and
prosperity.

"These are well captured eithin the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP.

"Independent evaluation by auditors, for the success or otherwise of
the implementations especially in the management of looted funds;
against the right of proper implementations of the treasury single
account TSA, the input achieved through the NPower programme, the
lives that have been improved through the social safety net,
conditional cash transfers and the school feeding programme and the
visible progress with growth and real infrastructure, across the
country are all necessary ingredients for improvement."

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