The Enugu State House of Assembly Committee on Public Accounts and Anti-Corruption has commenced a forensic audit of the accounts of the 17 Local Government Councils in the state.

The Chairman of the committee, Mr Chinedu Nwamba, made the disclosure in an interview with newsmen in Enugu on Thursday.

He said the committee was investigating the councils to ascertain how they had been managing public funds.
Nwamba said the committee had already visited all the councils.

He said it had not been easy to get into the books of the councils in the past two years, noting that the committee was still compiling its report on the visits.

The lawmaker said the committee gave some time to the caretaker committees to execute projects before they could go back to look into their books.

He said that because of the peculiarity of each of the councils, the committee could not apply uniform standards on accessing the projects executed.

“If you go to Local Government ‘ A,’ their terrain may be so bad that they need road construction and when you go to Local Government ‘B,” it may be the source of drinking water and when you go to Local Government ‘C’ their need might be electricity.

“You can see that there is no strict standard on what each Local Government will do.

“But what we want to say is what is the demand of the rural populace in those LGs?

“What do they need and how has the Local Government chairmen responded positively on the needs?,” Nwamba said.

NAN