Most ministries, Departments and Agencies are wilfully refusing to submit their monthly, quarterly and half-yearly audit reports to the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Federal Government said on Wednesday.

It also vowed to sanction heads of internal audit departments of defaulting MDAs in coming months, as defaulters were violating stipulated financial regulations of government.

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, said these in Abuja during a virtual meeting with directors/heads of internal audit of MDAs.

He told participants at the meeting that auditors were expected to put in their reports promptly as and when due as specified by FR (Financial Regulations) 1706.

Quoting the regulation, Idris said, “‘The internal auditor shall produce monthly, quarterly and half-yearly reports for the accounting officer on the progress of the audit with copies to the Accountant-General of the Federation and Auditor-General for the Federation respectively.

“Regrettably, it has been observed that most MDAs are behind in their reports while others have wilfully refused to render these reports which are clear violation of the provision of the Financial Regulations.”

He added, “Consequently, may I inform you that refusal to forward these reports by any MDA forthwith would be regarded as an attempt to undermine the authority of the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the head of internal audit of such defaulting MDA(s) will be duly sanctioned in coming months.”

On why the meeting was organised, Idris said it was in continuation of the audit modernisation project that the audit monitoring department decided to bring to the knowledge of all internal auditors about a new software.

He said the new Interactive Data Extract Analysis software was meant to be deployed service-wide.

According to him, approval had been granted for the acquisition of five numbers of the IDEA software licences that would be used by the audit monitoring department and deployed to some pilot agencies that indicate interest to acquire the software.

Idris said, “The IDEA software is a computer based file interrogation tool that can be used by numerous individuals and organisations including auditors, accountants, investigators and IT staff.

“It analyses data in multiple ways and allows for extraction, sampling and manipulation of data in order to identify errors, problems, specific issues and trends.”

He also noted that the OAGF engaged a consultant, Cowater International Inc., with the objective of modernising the internal audit function in the public sector and to recommend measures to increase professional performance of internal auditors.