The Senate has suspended the 2025 budget defence for the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation (OAGF), due to poor preparation and discrepancies in budget documents presented by the Auditor General, S.K. Chira.
The suspension, announced by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, may lead to a zero allocation for the OAGF, as the Senate has set Wednesday, January 22, 2025, as the deadline for budget defences.
This timeline aims to allow the Committee on Appropriation to harmonize reports from various committees.
Chira and his team appeared before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts chaired by Senator Ahmed Wadada but were dismissed for their lack of diligence in handling budget documents.
Anger flared during the session when it was discovered that the budget document Chira was reading differed from the copies provided to committee members.
“The Auditor General came unprepared and could not answer basic questions concerning the 2024 budget performance of his office,” a committee member lamented.
In an effort to allay fears of missing out on the budget process, Senator Wadada emphasized the importance of preparedness, stating, “It is left for the Auditor General for the Federation to go get prepared and return, even in two hours, now that he has been told that Wednesday is the deadline.”
