The Lagos House of Assembly has started an audit exercise for the state’s 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDA).
The chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts (local), Mojeed Fatai, made this known in a statement issued on Saturday in Lagos.
Fatai said the committee was due to submit its report to the House after the week-long exercise.
The legislator explained that the exercise was aimed at verifying the probity and accountability in the administration of local government, as provided for in the 1999 (amended) Constitution.
He said, “The essence of the exercise is to allow the committee to consider the 2019 Auditor General’s report without fear or favor to any local council impeached by Auditor General officials.
“In addition, the committee has the power to subpoena any person to testify in any place or to produce any document or other thing in its possession or under its control.
“This is in line with the need for effective and best practices in pursuit of its statutory objectives, as mandated by the committee to conduct this exercise without bias and in accordance with standard best practices”.
Fatai noted that letters had been sent to the 20 LGAs and 37 LCDAs and should be accompanied by copies of the approved budget for Y2017 and Y2020, an analysis of payments made to non-pensionable staff in Y2017-Y2019.
The legislator said that the other relevant documents to be provided were the analysis of recurrent expenditure from June to December 2017-2020.
According to him, the others are the bank statements as of December 31, 2018 and all the outstanding issues in the 2019 statutory report.
Fatai said the expected officials at the exercise were the presidents of each local government, the vice presidents. , the head of the council, the members of the exco, the directors of the council, the treasurers of the council and the heads of departments. (NAN)
