BEVERLY HILLS, August 02, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Auditor-General of the Federation to ensure that all outstanding audit queries are conclusively resolved within 30 days.
The President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, confirmed this development to State House correspondents in Abuja on Sunday.
He said the President also ordered that henceforth, all audit queries must be answered within 24 hours.
He said the order followed the president’s displeasure on hearing that audit queries remained unanswered for long periods, sometimes running into years, under previous administrations.
Shehu reaffirmed that Buhari was irrevocably committed to tackling administrative and bureaucratic corruption head-on.
“The era of impunity is gone. The President is taking the war on corruption to the civil service. He is not happy that standard operating procedures and financial regulations are no longer being observed as they should.
“President Buhari will ensure that public officials and civil servants in the service of the Federal Government pay a heavy price from now on for violating financial regulations or disregarding audit queries,’’ he further maintained.
He added that the President was determined to put an end to the situation in which, rather than respond to legitimate audit queries, violators of financial regulations resort to threatening, bribing or mounting pressure on auditors.
“On his watch, President Buhari wants to see firm action against those who violate extant financial regulations, not the prevarications and shenanigans that went on in the past in the form of endless probes and public inquiries,’’ he said.
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