The Committee with Mrs. FS Adesoye, of the Ministry of Local Government, Establishment, Training and Pensions.
Eromosele Ebhomele
Top civil servants in Lagos State who refuse to comply with directives of the state House of Assembly in relation to the state Auditor-General report could face sanctions from the House, Chairman of the Committee on Public Accounts, Moshood Oshun, has said.
Oshun said this Monday as the committee commenced an audit compliance exercise of the various ministries, departments and agencies of the state.
Oshun warned that since the intention of the state government was to make Lagos a better place, it was necessary to keep every stakeholder on his toes.
He said: “The auditor-general’s report was done about five months ago and there are issues some of the ministries, agencies and parastatals were asked to comply with. We just want to know if they have complied with it.
“You need to understand the fact that asking them to comply is a matter of the law. The ones we have done so far have been satisfactory. We want to assume and hope others would be like that.
“There is a penalty for failure to comply. Remember the committee represents the House. If there is anything we think is beyond the committee, we take it before the House of 40 members representing all the residents of Lagos.
“There are laws guiding the committee and its work and we would want to apply the law at every given time.
“We don’t want to preempt because we don’t want to believe there would be anyone who would not comply with the decision of the House.
“This has got nothing to do with political affiliation. This is about Lagos and everybody, including the leaders of all the political parties in the state, want Lagos to move forward.
“It is not about party; we want our state to compete with the best in the world and for that to happen, we must all work, put in our best. We want the best for Lagos, the governor wants the best for Lagos and represents all the parties in Lagos since the day he was sworn-in.
“The House also represents Lagosians and not parties and we must move the state forward.
“Lagos has always been known as centre of excellence and no matter what happens, we try to find and move to the next level. This had been proven several times beyond reasonable doubt.
“We saw it when Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was governor of the state and ensured that the state moved to the next level, we saw it when Babatunde Fashola was there and we are seeing it now.
“We don’t have a choice, the price of crude oil will fall, but what is important for us is to make sure that the Lagos of yesterday is not the same with what we have today. We must move forward. Lagosians must also be ready to join hands with the government for us to move forward,” he said.
During the review of the compliance level of the Ministry of Local Government, Establishment, Training and Pensions, the Permanent Secretary, Mrs. F. S. Adesoye, said the ministry had complied with all the recommendations in the Auditor-General’s report concerning her ministry.
She also disclosed that the ministry beat its budget target of N4 million for the two halls under its watch by generating N4.8 million in 2015.
Oshun applauded the ministry for exceeding the budget target on the halls, but queried why there was no proper documentation with regard to the usage of the halls.
To this, the Permanent Secretary said the ministry had adopted the use of a log book as advised by the Auditor-General’s report.
The committee also challenged the ministry to up the revenue generated with the use of hall to N10 million.
Other agencies of the government were taken by the committee.