By: Fatou Dahaba
The National Assembly’s Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) has called for urgent action to address a lingering D2.8 million discrepancy in government accounts, highlighting deeper concerns over the design of the treasury’s financial management system and persistent delays in reconciliations.
The issue came to light during a recent committee session reviewing the Auditor General’s Reports on Government Accounts for 2021 to 2024. Auditors identified irregularities involving funds processed through a sub-treasury transit account, where a transfer of D2,837,848 remained unresolved despite efforts to clear related entries.
Treasury officials from the Accountant General’s Department explained that a smaller misposting of D91,500 was successfully corrected via a journal adjustment after it was erroneously recorded under an expenditure code rather than a revenue code. However, the larger amount could not be similarly resolved because the transit account—used to hold funds moving between the Accountant General and sub-treasuries temporarily—was “not designed as a rolling balance.”
The transaction, initiated late in 2021 but only appearing in the receiving account in early 2022, straddled two financial years. Officials noted that the system automatically closes accounts at year-end, creating technical barriers to matching entries on both sides of the ledger across periods. “It is not an error in spending,” one official emphasized. “It is a timing difference created by the way the system was designed.”
Committee members expressed frustration, questioning the inconsistency in corrections. “If one item can be corrected, why is it difficult to correct the other?” a lawmaker asked. They argued that transit accounts should be reconciled to zero, and that unresolved balances in the millions erode public confidence in financial reporting. Auditors and lawmakers stressed that documented evidence and available journal mechanisms could clear the anomaly.
FPAC urged the department to expedite corrective measures, including the potential use of adjustments before final audits. Officials indicated they are exploring redesigns to automatically rollover balances into subsequent years, aiming to prevent future mismatches.
The committee warned that such lingering discrepancies undermine transparency and accountability in public finance management. They demanded faster interventions to restore trust and ensure the treasury system supports accurate, timely reporting.
