Barely two days to the end of their sitting the National Conference Committee on Public Finance and Revenue is still divided over whether it was appropriate to split the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation by creating a separate Office as Accountant General of the Federal Government.
The divide became wider yesterday when the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla, appeared before the committee to counter the position of previous invitees that were championing for the split of the office.
While most of the committee members favoured the creation of another accounting office solely for the Federal Government which will not interfere with funds from States and Local Government Councils, others were of the view that such measures would be robbing the President, Goodluck Jonathan of powers to effectively manage the economy.
Fielding questions from journalists after making his presentation, Otunla said splitting the office will not only create inefficiency in the system but also affect the powers of the President to manage the economy.
“I have made a very strong case, the agitation for the split of the office of the Accountant General has been on for a very long time, it’s more of an emotional issue against the Federal Government as if the federal government is rascally in the running and management of the federation account which is not so.
“The constitution empowers the President to manage the economy and this power should not be taken away from him by whittling down his powers by creating an office which I consider will be duplication of efforts.
“I still strongly support that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation as it is presently constituted should not be split.”
However, a member of the committee representing the South-South zone, Hon. Okon Osung, said the Accountant General of the Federation was not able to convince some members of the committee otherwise as to the desirability of retaining the office as presently constituted.
“The AGF came and appeared before the committee on the very vexed issue of whether they should split the office of the AGF from the office of the Accountant General of the Federal Government, he made a very robust defence of that office but we are not satisfied.
“In the sense that this position about splitting that office has been canvassed over the years by the National Economic Council by the Governors’ Forum, by eminent citizens who had earlier appeared before our committee and the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission and even the professional body, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN.
“We think that it is in the best interest of Nigeria’s federal system for that office to be separated, he did not convince the committee, so the position of the committee is still that, that office should be split into two separate offices.
“It is not a duplication of the same office because we are operating a federal system which has three tiers of government; in that three tiers do you really have a superior partner? He who pays the piper dictates the tune, and as is being canvassed in his presence, there has been a situation where federal government took money from the federation account and used it to finance power generation in the country without agreement by the other two tiers of government.
“There was also a situation where federal government took money to pay the debt of the Paris Club without authorization,
Therefore, we believe those two offices should be separated”.
The committee is expected to take a final decision today which will be presented to the plenary session of the conference.
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