The chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, Bamidele Salam, on Tuesday, canvassed for financial and operational autonomy for Supreme Audit Institutions across Africa.

Mr Salam made the call at the 17th Annual Conference and 21st General Meeting of the Southern African Organisation of Public Accounts Committees in the Kingdom of Lesotho.

The SAOPAC conference brings together public accounts committees from southern and other African countries to strengthen parliamentary oversight and promote best practices in public financial management.

Mr Salam, who led a delegation of Nigerian lawmakers to the conference, said that the call became necessary to strengthen accountability and transparency in governance across the continent.

The lawmaker said that audit institutions must be insulated from political interference through independent funding frameworks to effectively fulfil constitutional mandates of combating corruption and curbing wasteful public expenditure.

According to him, this will empower audit offices to carry out objective assessments of government accounts, enhance fiscal discipline, and promote public confidence in governance processes.

“There is a need for our supreme audit institutions to have an independent funding framework in order to make them perform optimally in carrying out their constitutional responsibilities of eliminating corruption and wastage in public expenditure,” he stated.

The lawmaker described the Lesotho conference as an invaluable platform for collaboration and knowledge exchange among parliamentarians, auditors-general, and development partners across the continent.

“It has been a wonderful time sharing knowledge and experiences with colleagues from other African countries and development partners attending this conference,” he said.

(NAN)