By Ayo Ibrahim
The Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, FCNA 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.
The AGF made this 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 praised the credentials of EY and added that the OAGF is open to value addition and with EY, that can be achieved.But he advised against a generalized approach. “The OAGF does not want a generalized approach, we want specifics. No more talking and meeting, we want to achieve results” Ahmed 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 can add value to government’s effort to come up.
Ahmed 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 generalized 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 don’t want generalized 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. Ben Afudego who led the team, thanked the Accountant General of the Federation and the Directors of the Treasury for taking time out of their busy schedules to receive them in a short notice as he gave an overview of the purpose of their visit to the OAGF and the EY vision for working with government.
According to Ben 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 also reeled out several solutions developed by EY such as Strategic planning and fiscal policy, budget process improvement, revenue administration reforms, treasury modernization and reform, performance monitoring, evaluation and management which are geared towards addressing all aspect of Public Financial Management (PFM). Adding that, the approach follows an integrated model which is 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.
