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In order to have efficient and effective local government administration in the state, Oyo State House of Assembly has recommended capacity development, training and retraining, as well as ICT empowerment for local government workers.
Chairman of the House Public Account Committee, Hon. Rahman Olorunpoto gave the recommendations at the end of a one-week legislative hearing on consideration of Auditors-General’s reports on the account of local governments for the year 2021 and 2022.
The lawmaker challenged local government authorities in the state to be more thorough and follow due process in the handling of state finances.
Hon Olorunpoto, who said that the exercise was not to witch-hunt anyone but to ensure accountability and transparency in public funds, said that all the 33 local governments and LCDA management were duly interrogated.
He said the report of the exercise would be submitted to the House during plenary which the 10th assembly will consider.
Hon Olorunpoto said that there were lots of avoidable errors in their papers, thereby calling for the training and retraining for the workers in the councils.
“I want to tell you that there are no intention to witch-hunt, all that we’re trying to do was to ensure that our books are up to date. We also want to ensure that things are done in a proper way. Apart from auditing figures, we also want to audit process, we want to know what led to what, at what point did paper A moved to the next office and through what means. We need to know that you’re working in line with necessary processes.
“We have been mandated by the constitution to engage ministries, departments and agencies of the state and local government to review the auditor general’s reports
“Whatever we want to do, let’s do the right thing. We’re poised to score important points for accountability and transparency for this government. We want to be sure that we can boost of our records
The committee chairman who hinted that the assembly would work towards digital means of engaging the MDAs and LG authorities in future exercise, told the council chairmen to also go digital in record keeping.
“We have dealt with more than 500 documents hard copies in the last 5 days. This is not something that should continue. Our shelves are already filled up with documents, so we want to see how we can get them to go digital. When they go Digital with documentation, they should also go digital with IGR collections, so we will be able to block leakages.
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