EFCC and NNPC are Above the Law in Nigeria?

A lot of rubbish happens in this country without any commensurate action or reaction from those saddled with the responsibility to checkmate such wrongs. But the illegality becomes more worrisome when it involves one or two of the most important public agencies in Nigeria - the EFCC (empowered to stop people from stealing public fund) and the NNPC (empowered to supervise the most important source of income).

Continue to find out how these two agencies are managing their mandates...

The Auditor General of the Federation, Mr Samuel Orkura, have raised alarm over the refusal of some government agencies and parastatals to submit their audited accounts to his poffice in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.

Appearing before the House Committee on Public Accounts at the weekend, the Auditor General named the NNPC and the EFCC as top on the list of agencies that have not had their accounts audited SINCE INCEPTION. He however blamed the National Assembly for not acting on the audited accounts of the federation submitted to it since 1999.

Here is what he told the federal lawmakers:

“Most of the time, those we audit do not take us seriously; they tell us to our faces that our report won’t change things; that we may go ahead to write whatever report we can write about them but it would not affect them because the National Assembly has not been acting on audit reports. The problem is further compounded by the fact that we have no powers to sanction those agencies who failed to transmit their audit reports to us.”

To make matters worse, the spokesman for the EFCC, Mr. Femi Babafemi, said the commission CANNOT render its account to the office of the Auditor General for scrutiny. In his words: "the enabling Act that established the EFCC in no way mandated us to render such account to the office in question".

So, since the office of the Auditor General is too small for the EFCC, will Mr. Babafemi please tell Nigerians who is good enough to check how they've been spending Nigeria's money?

Additional report by Vanguard.