The Forensic Audit: A Lost Opportunity to Regain Good Governance

Getting the concurrence of the Senate to do a forensic audit was one thing. Actually commissioning the audit turned out to be extremely difficult because no one wanted ownership. Ultimately, the Senate decided to do its own investigation but have the Jonathan administration take charge of the forensic audit. But who in the administration could take charge? Neither the Finance Ministry nor the Ministry of Petroleum Resources could oversee the audit because they both were interested parties. As the issue languished for weeks, I worried that the audit would never get done and the country's reputation would suffer further.

But interest in the forensic audit was very high, and the media kept asking about it. I met with President Jonathan to discuss the matter. It was eventually agreed that the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation should commission the audit. The Auditor General said that some aspects of the audit law might prevent him from launching such an independent audit and was initially reluctant to involve independent auditors. There also were unspoken career and personal risks to engaging in such sensitive work. After several discussions, the
Auditor General agreed that it was in the best interests of the nation to have independent rather than in-house auditors cond He engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the job on June 5 a The scope of work for PwC, as summarized in its report, analysis of remittance shortfalls from NNPC into the Federa Accounts; b) Analysis of submissions made by key stakeholders relation to the alleged shortfalls; c) Producing an independent Fo report detailing our findins." PwC submitted its report on Nov 25, 2014, based on materials received through October 31, 2014. to letter dated january 7, 2015, the Auditor General for the Federal subsequently asked PwC to consider additional information by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation up to January 2015. The forensic audit report was thus amended to take into account the additional information. In its cover letter to the report, PwC warned that "the procedures performed did not constitute an examination or review in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards or attestation standards." Nevertheless, it made the following findings:

Extracted from: fighting corruption is dangerous