Lawmakers berate MDAs for submitting appalling financial reports

Zainab Gimba, the head of the House of Representatives Committee on Steel Development, expressed disapproval on Tuesday, over the subpar financial reports that the ministry and committee-administered organisations had submitted.

The chairperson of the committee chastised the Ministry of Steel Development and affiliated organisations for not presenting their submissions during this year’s budget appraisal meeting.

She added that after reviewing the documents given by the ministry and its agencies, it became evident that a common factor—that is, the inability to get legitimate bank statements from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in order to compile normal bank reconciliation statements—had been overlooked.

“This omission calls for a credibility question on the resultant financial statements from such a weak accounting system…”

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Gimba further noted, “Efficient accounting system and effective internal control system are comforts that ensure compliance to laws, rules, regulations and standard that support discharge of quality oversight function. We shall maintain uncompromising guidance towards achieving results. This is the essence of oversight in parliamentary representation.

“It may interest you to note that it has been observed that the ministry and agencies are obscured to have access to bank transactions, activity on the IPPIS platform.

“Notwithstanding, there is access to GIFMIS transactions listing, which is a database managed by Accountant General and it’s not the bank statement. Bank statements should come from the database managed by CBN. The GIFMIS transaction listing doesn’t suffice as a bank statement.

“The required bank statement should be a complete ledger in columnar format, showing transaction dates, descriptions, particularly debit, credit and balance.

“It is obvious there exists a knowledge gap concerning proper understanding of the digital accounting environment and processes. Hence, you could operate comfortably without having access to your bank statement to execute periodic bank reconciliation statements,” Gimba said.

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