The Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation is going to carry out Performance Auditing of United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) projects in Nigeria.
The Auditor-General for the Federation Mr. Samuel T. Ukura stated this recently during a courtesy visit by the country representative of UNICEF, Jean Gongh in his Office at Abuja.
Mr. Ukura assured the UNICEF Representative that his Office is going to work in collaboration with the National Planning Commission (NPC) in order to have a good and efficient data base of their projects and other United Nations related programmes.
He commended UNICEF and other United Nations Agencies who have started the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) in all their monetary transactions.
The Auditor-General also stated that the Office is already training staff in different parts of the world like Malaysia, South Africa, Ghana etc in order to be in line with the international best practices. He noted that “it is important for us to get it right because we want to stay ahead and not be coming from behind”.
Mr. Ukura explained that the Office will also monitor and evaluate UNICEF projects and programmes. This is in order to have a holistic assessment of all the projects.
He requested for assistance from the UNICEF in the area of capacity building in some of the Emerging Audits like Environmental Auditing, IT Auditing, Performance Auditing, etc.
Responding, the UNICEF country Representative, Jean Gough thanked the Auditor-General for the warm receipt accorded her and other members of her entourage.
She enumerated some of their programmes in the country to include elimination of the Ebola Virus in the country, safe school initiatives, improve on girl/child education, stopping transmission of polio, etc. She promised to support the Office in capacity building.
She also expressed their appreciation to the Auditor-General for his assistance in auditing their projects and also to harmonize United Nations projects in the country. This she said will lead to better and holistic assessment of all the projects.
