Dr Abraham Gberindyer is the Auditor-General for Local Governments in Benue State. In this interview with CEPHAS IORHEMEN, he speaks on local government administration in the state and some issues he uncovered during his duty tour of the 23 councils

You just concluded the tour of the 23 local government areas of Benue State in your capacity as the Auditor General for Local Governments in the state. What were your findings and assessments?

On assumption of office in July last year, I took action on issues that we may do, and one was to carry out the need assessment of my staff, who are my representative in the 23 local government areas of the state to know if they are living up to expectations.

Secondly, to have interactions with the executive and legislative councils in the various local government areas on issues that bother on financial management.

So, as I moved round, I got a lot of information that will help us strengthen the system in terms of maintenance of records, proper accountability and address other issues that will give transparency to councils administration so that at the end of the day, people of the state will benefit from the dividends of democracy.

What about the issue of contracts you earlier mentioned?

Yes, I also interacted with the councils on the issue of contracts. If you recall, the Governor Hyacinth Alia’s administration has embarked on a lot of contracts, even in the various local government areas, a lot of joint contracts are going on.

So, we are looking at the records because even if they have done good projects, but there are no records, it’s like you have not done anything.

So, I tried to educate them on how such records should be kept, and as the Auditor General for Local Governments in the state, I have the responsibility to monitor those projects that are going on and where there are no records, we sanction you appropriately. So, that was the aim of the tour.

In the course of the tour, did you notice any discrepancies in financial management that needs to be addressed. For instance, where council chairmen are accused of diverting funds?

Actually, my visit was not an examination neither was it auditing. I only interacted with the council chairmen. There were no areas that we are having problems in terms of records keeping.

And of course, in terms of revenue, I also advised, because of the experience I got while already carrying out those examinations before for those council chairmen that contract revenue out to party allies to collect revenue to stop as it’s not right to do that.

There are two ways of collecting revenue. One, the staff which government engage are charged with the responsibility of collecting revenue for the state government and that is why we have the department of revenue in the various local government councils.

But if you don’t want to use revenue staff to collect revenue, may be, because they are not giving you the desired results, you will engage a professional or qualified consultant who is an expert in the area of revenue generation to do that on behalf of government.

In that case, the law mandates me as an auditor to monitor the performance because at the end of the day, the reports will be sent out to various stakeholders for scrutiny. All these are done rightly because of the zero tolerance for corruption posture of the Governor Alia’s administration.

What is the position of the state on the local government autonomy. Has it taken off in the state?

Local government autonomy has taken off in Benue State before the Supreme Court judgement.

If you recall, immediately Governor Alia was sworn-in, he granted autonomy to local government councils in the state.

And as far as I am concerned, I think there is no interference in the activities of the local governments in the state.

What are your plans for this office?

My plans are not far from the vision of the governor of our state to digitalize government business, and the office of the Auditor General is not an exception because over the years, if I tell that if you Google this office from anywhere in the state you will see audited reports of years, I will be lying because it has not been like that.

It is my intention and plans to make this office a global one, so that from wherever you are in the world, if you want to see audited reports of the state and the 23 local government councils, it won’t be a problem.

If you have any intervention that can help the state through that, you can do so by coming to partner with the local councils in the state to facilitate the ease of doing business.

As I am talking with you now, I cannot say categorically that these are the number of staff in Gwer-West, Gwer-East, Ukum, Vandeikya and the rest because there is no data for now but it is my responsibility to check because I am auditing those places.

So, if I have such data, we should know their total number and as they are retiring too. We should be controlling bills and manpower and by the grace of God we will be embarking on manpower audit because the governor has granted me power to carry out staff audit.