Poor leadership contributes to weak audit system

“ We do not ask to see the financial report”

By Tamiru Geda

Government officials and leaders are mostly found to be weak as far as monitoring their internal audit systems of their respective organizations.
Ato Haile Melekot Tekle Giorgis, State Minister of Capacity Building said that such is the nature of most of government institution leaders. At a workshop that was held on April 6 to 7, 2004 at the Parliament, the State Minister stressed to senior federal and regional state government officials that it is not possible to achieve success in the absence of good leadership.
This problem is also witnessed in the financial sector, where the responsible officials do not pay the necessary attention to the controlling of the finances, he further explained. “Many believe that the financial issue is someone else’s job, and do not take it as part of their responsibility,” said Haile Melekot.
Most of the time they are inclined to concentrate more on the physical side than the resources used to process the physical report. “We don’t ask to see the financial reports. It is only for the benefit of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) that we prepare it. This may be due to the lack of knowledge about the importance of the matter.” But he said, it should be an obligation to ask, check and comment on the financial report.
“According to the law, however, officials who do not respect this rule will be held responsible to the extent of being put in jail”, stressed Haile Melekot, “and even we do not respect this provision of the law.”
As a survey undertaken by the Federal General Auditor’s office disclosed, there is a lack of standardized purchasing system, and lack of internal auditing, that is largely attributed to the poor financial administration of government money, properties and budgeting schemes.