The Chartered Institute of Forensics and Certified Fraud Investigators of Nigeria (CIFCFIN) has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to give quick assent to the Audit Service Bill recently passed by both chambers of the ninth National Assembly. “This will transform the landscape of the entire public financial management and ensure that audit of government funds is now done transparently as obtainable in other jurisdictions,” noted CIFCFIN President, Dr. Iliyasu Gashinbaki.

He was speaking recently after signing a partnership agreement to combat fraud and corruption in the country with the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation at Audit House, Abuja. He said in the coming days, the Institute would be working on “our Country Report, and one of the things that the Country Report would highlight is also the importance of not only the President assenting to the Bill but giving the Office of the Auditor-General the necessary support and autonomy robustly to carry out its functions.”

Stressing the benefits of the bill once signed into Law, Acting Auditor General for the Federation, Dr Andrew Onwudili said: “it will give us our autonomy status, and the Office will be separated from the Federal Civil Service Commission or any other Commission, just like the way government owned Audit institutions operate in other countries like Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and several other countries across the world.”

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Other benefits include: releasing the needed funds necessary to creditably carry out its core functions; accessing funds from First Line Charge and renewed vigour to fight and drastically reduce corruption ravaging the public sector among others.

On the partnership agreement with CIFCFIN, the Acting Auditor General of the Federation said: “it is a great opportunity to further define new frontiers of what our two institutions hold dear and beneficial to the citizens of this great country as we entrench probity and accountability in the public sector and the country at large.”

In his remarks, CIFCFIN President, Dr. Iliyasu Gashinbaki said the partnership “will be very, very transformative when it comes to audit as we know it, and in particular, the infusion of forensics and fraud investigation into the practice of audit. It will go a long way in reducing, if not eliminating the massive corruption challenges that we have when it comes to financial statements of governments as we have seen over the years.”