The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, has declared his readiness to partner with stakeholders that have valuable ideas which will help consolidate the gains of the ongoing financial management reforms initiatives.
He made the declaration in Abuja when he received in audience the Partners of Ernst and Young (EY) in his office, led by the Advisory Leader (West Africa) Mr. Ben Afudego. He commended the credentials of EY and added that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) was open to value addition.
He assured that with EY, that could be achieved, but he advised against a generalised approach. “The OAGF does not want a generalised approach, we want specifics. No more talking and meeting, we want to achieve results,” Mr. Idris said.
Idris, whose office anchors the federal government’s financial management reforms, noted that the overall success of the initiatives is hinged on implementation of result-oriented ideas. He called on stakeholders that could add value to government’s effort to come up.
Mr. Idris further advocated for strong collaboration between some treasury departments and EY Consulting to drive government reforms with the application of technology as he advises for specific areas and not the generalised style of approach.
“We are open to new ideas, we are open to value addition, we believe if we get critical stakeholders, we can achieve even more successes in the reform initiatives”, he said.
He noted that individuals not directly involved in the implementation of the reforms are in a better position to assess the efforts of the federal government. He expressed government’s readiness to accept ideas that would help correct whatever anomaly is observed.
Idris maintained that the government will continue to turn its back on individuals whose approach to issues is considered incapable of meeting government’s objectives.
“As much as we want improvements in our system and value addition, we do not want generalised approach. We want specific approach. Come up with specific things you can do to add value; we want results,” he said.
In his response, Mr. Afudego who led the team thanked the AGF and the Directors of the Treasury for receiving them in a short notice, as he gave an overview of the purpose of their visit and the EY vision for working with government to the OAGF.
According to Afudego, EY would want to work with the OAGF in revenue protection and improvement, asset tracking and monitoring, continuous process improvement, data analytics, digital and other priority areas of the OAGF.
He reeled out several solutions developed by EY such as strategic planning and fiscal policy, budget process improvement, revenue administration reforms, treasury modernisation and reform, performance monitoring, evaluation and management, which are geared towards addressing all aspect of public financial management (PFM).
He added that the approach follows an integrated model which structured around the budget cycle to support accurate and timely decision making.
He also disclosed that EY is one of the leading consultants for World Bank and many African countries.
In a similar development, Mr. Joe Cosma, one of the Partners of EY, called for investment in systems and sustained efforts in building the systems.
