By Precious Oluwole

Hon. Festus Adefiranye, the Chairman House Committee on Public Accounts, Ondo State House of Assembly has assured that the tenth assembly will start from a clean record, saying there is no outstanding in both State and local governments accounts.

He gave this assurance on Thursday at the closing of public sitting on the consideration of the reports of the Auditor- General for Local Governments on the audited accounts of the eighteen Local Governments of the State for 2020-202.

Adefiranye revealed that “when we resumed, we decided that the tenth assembly will start from clean record and we’ve been able to achieve that”.

He added that the work of the public account is not to witch-hunt or to find fault but to ensure that there is transparency and accountability in the dealings of the state.

He further noted that the 9th Assembly has been able to clear backlogs of both State and local governments to ensure effective service delivery.

“It is the Committee’s statotary duty to ensure checks and balances on the audited accounts of the State and local governments while report of the exercise will be submitted to the house for approval”.

“It is compulsory that people justify money collected from the State and local governments coffers through proper records because the money belong to the good people of the State and that is what we have done”.

“I am advising the heads of local governments administration and their team to always do the needful at the right time to ensure transparency and accountability”.

“In the last sitting for the State, it was resolved that no Permanent Secretary will be allowed to get clearance when they retire without clearing queries on them and we also want to implement that at the Local Government level, that no Head of Local Government Administration will get cleared if they have any query on them”.

“We are also going to pass a resolution that no Accounting Officer will be able to collect another money if they fail to retire the one they have collected. So, we have filled the resolution to the entire House and it will have a resolution on that, it will be sent to the Accountant General and also the Local Government”.