The Ondo State House of Assembly says it has been able to clear all the reports from both the state and local government auditors-general from the 8th Assembly.
The Chairman of the Public Account Committee (PAC), Mr Festus Adefiranye, stated this at the end of a three-day public sitting on the 2020 and 2021 Auditor General’s Reports on the accounts of the 18 local governments of the state.
“Today, we don’t have any outstanding report.
“The 10th Assembly will start from clean record. That was our decision when I took over as chairman of the committee. That we would ensure that we clear the backlogs, which we have done.
“As I have said, the work of the public account is not to witch-hunt or to find faults but to ensure that there is transparency and accountability in the dealing of the state and that is what we have done,” he said.
The PAC Chairman explained that the committee would fine any head of administration of local government and accounting officer found culpable in the report.
“In the last sitting on the state report, we said that Permanent Secretaries found culpable would not get clearance if they have query on them. That one is in operation. And we want to implement them in the local government now.
“That the heads of local government administration will not get clearance if they have any query on them. Also, we are going to pass a resolution that no accounting officer will be able to collect another money if they fail to account for the one they have collected,” he stated.
According to him, there is no major fault found in the reports under review.
“They have just two queries, may be in the course of the negligence, they forgot to do the needful.
“But there is no major query because they know that the Public Account Committee will not take it from them. So they must justify what they spent. So, you can see our efforts,” he said.
The Chairman, therefore, thanked the House Speaker, Mr Bamidele Oloyelogun, for giving him the opportunity to serve, extending the appreciation to the committee’s members to ensure that the backlog of reports from the state and local auditors general were cleared by the committee in the 9th Assembly.