Says the Local Government accounts are verified quarterly, contrary to the state government’s claims
The National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in Plateau State has denied claims by the state government that the local governments’ accounts have not been audited in the last ten years.
President of the union, Samson Mafuyai, on Sunday in Jos said the government’s claims did not tally with available evidence at the disposal of the NULGE, which showed that the accounts of the 17 local governments in the state were being audited quarterly.
According to him, the state government’s claim that the accounts of the 17 local governments had remained unaudited for the past 10 years was wrong and could be a deliberate falsehood.
“The councils have what they call the quarterly audit. The staff of the Office of the Auditor-General for Local Governments, usually visit the local governments every three months for audit purpose,” Mafuyai said.
“This had always been done over the years without a break. So, if they are saying that the accounts have not been audited for the past 10 years, I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know until I get clarification.”
The union head added that a visit to the office of the Auditor-General to check facts would corroborate what he said and not what the state government alleged.
Officials of the state government had, at a news conference, said that the rot in its local government’s administration was due to the lack of auditing of the accounts of the third tier of government in the past 10 years.
The Head of Civil Service, Moses Gwom, told journalists after the State Executive Council meeting last week that the situation had led to an “unimaginable level of corruption” in the local governments.
Consequently, the Commissioner for Local Governments, Paul Wai, said that a major re-organisation was ongoing to deal with the corruption at that level.
“One of the measures is the dispassionate transfer of all local government staffers to their various local governments of origin,” he said.
