By Bayo Davids
The claim by the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps NSCDC’s claim that officials from the Fiscal Responsibility Commission insisted that its annual financial and audited reports must be prepared by Independent Accounting and Audit Firms, for them to be acceptable, has been denied by the FRC Chairman, Victor Muruako.
Asked to react to the allegation given that most of the MDAs have staff members posted to them from the Offices of the Accountant General of the Federation and the Auditor General of the Federation AuGF, the FRC boss said there was no such condition operational at the Commission, noting that it accept financial and audit statements from MDAs prepared by relevant staff as expressly contained in the Act setting up the Commission.
This was revealed on Tuesday at the resumed Hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework MTEF, particularly in relation to income generation and expenditures by the MDAs.
“As chairman of the FRC, I am not aware of the commission insisting on independent accounting and audit firms preparing the financial statements of MDAs before they could be acted upon by the commission.
“FRC does not operate outside the Acts setting it up which is specific about preparation of financial documents and Reports” Muruako said.
Committee member Oluwole Oke had questioned the reasin behind FRC’s insistence on financial statements prepared by independent accounting and Audit firms, considering the cost of hiring such professional services, when there are competent in-house staff to do the Job.
Chairman of the Committee, James Faleke advised the NSCDC to review its licensing and yearly renewal fees upward for Private Guard Companies as a means of increasing its capacity to generate funds internally.
This is as the committee described as insufficient the one-off license fee of N2 million for Grade 1 Security Guard Companies, which boasts of over 500 guards in their employ and N1.5m for Grade 2 companies with less than 500 with a yearly renewal fees of N200,000 and N100,000 for the two categories of companies.
The Deputy Commandant-General of the NSCDC, Nwinyi Nwokuche told the lawmakers that there are about 1300 PGC registered in the country with 400 of them operating in Lagos State alone.
After this revelation, Faleke demanded for a full register of security guard companies operating in the country, their full addresses, amounts paid for.licences and renewal fees over the years to give the committee proper insights into their operations.