The Center For Social Justice Pays Advocacy Visit To ANAN Abuja Branch

On the 16^th September, 2020 The Center for Social Justice paid an advocacy visit to the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria to seek the collaboration of the association in advocacy to the National Assembly to reintroduce the Audit Reform Bill.

The main focus of the advocacy is to get the National Assembly to pass the bill and have the Auditor General of the Federation empowered to implement his recommendations of the yearly report produced by his office. The bill which is not new to Nigerians was passed by the 5^th,7^th and 8^th National Assembly into law but the Executive at the respective times failed to assent to the bill. These Events took place under the governments of Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR, Goodluck Jonathan GCFR and the first tenure of his Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari. The bill has been seen by civil society organizations as a tool the help

end the incessant infractions reported by the auditor general that are not prosecuted. In his introductory speech the Lead Director of the Center for Social Justice Barr Eze Onyekpere noted that the president by law has 30 days to assent to a bill but in a case he/she is not interested in assenting to the bill, it is sent back to the National Assembly with a letter stating reasons why the bill was not assented to and also ask the National Assembly to touch the said parts of the bill and return for assent. In the case of president Muhammadu Buhari, he neither assented to the bill nor did he return it to the National Assembly despite glaring evidence that it was submitted to him following due process, hence placing the bill in a limbo.

It is at this note that the Center for Social Justice designed a project around reforming the federal audit system and practice to look into key issues which include: –

• A new audit regime backed by law enacted by the National Assembly and assented to by the president
• Activating key agencies that work on audit and mechanisms that work on audit.
• Audit service commission to help the office of the auditor general do its work well
• Having a functional Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly
• Building capacity for civil society organizations beyond professional accounting bodies
• Increased funding of the office of the Auditor General

Barr Eze Onyekpere pointed out that the office of the auditor general is about the biggest anti-corruption body as it is powered by the constitution unlike the EFCC and ICPC that were established by legislation but end up having bigger budgets and releases than the officer of the auditor general. The Center for Social Justice presented the delegates in the meeting with Audit policy brief volume one and volume two and also a simplified version of the auditor general’s report for 2017 prepared by the center.

The Chairman of ANAN Abuja chapter Mrs. Joyce Petu A. in her response said the visit by the Center for Social Justice is apt and will create a ripple effect even to generations unborn. She went further to say that repositioning the economy is one of the responsibilities saddled to ANAN and ANAN as a body is ready to cooperate with the Center to achieve this aim.

As a sign of friendship, the vice chairman ANAN Abuja branch Mr. Wahab S. Omoniu presented the team from Center For Social Justice with ANAN badges after which a group photo was taken.